The Incredible Hulk: Brains
by The Alpha Gray Wolf
Summary: Bruce Banner, a scientist with unmatched strength that emerges whenever he loses his temper, takes on an enemy with an IQ of 1005 and it's going to take more than brute strength to take him down, but with his sidekick dog and best friend, Kate, anything is possible. Set in an alternate universe on Earth-192322, acts as a parallel universe to the actual Incredible Hulk movie.
1. Helium

**Disclaimer: I only own the stuff that I made up. The rest belongs to Marvel, song artists, etc.**

**Starring: Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk and Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns/Leader**

**Extended Summary**

**Bruce Banner, a scientist with unmatched strength that emerges whenever he loses his temper, takes on an enemy with an IQ of 1005 and it's going to take more than brute strength to take him down, but with his sidekick dog and best friend, Kate, anything is possible. Set in an alternate universe on Earth-192322, acts as a parallel universe to the actual Incredible Hulk movie.**

* * *

It wasn't that he wasn't remembering correctly, it's just that his mind was recollecting it completely out of order. But he didn't really need much of a timeline to figure out which piece went where. He knew all the basics. He remembered that fateful day when his life changed forever and just thinking about it made him feel like he was reliving that day over and over again like he was stuck in some kind of a loop. He may have been a lot of things, but deep down, he was no monster. He looked like a monster, but he was no monster. What happened that fateful day was a pure accident and something that probably would've happened to someone else but he was at least glad that it happened to him because he trusted no one but himself with this power.

May 1, 2012, five years ago, Bruce Banner volunteered as a test subject for new experimental gamma radiation that was supposed to help improve the normal human being's immune system. Their goal was not to create super soldiers as the military had firmly told them to, they wanted to reduce the possibilities of cancer. When they were so sure they had a breakthrough, Bruce volunteered himself to have the gamma tested on. His associate, Betty Ross, had turned on the machine that he was strapped to, and bombarded him with the gamma radiation. The very last thing that Bruce Banner ever saw before his eyes turned a dark green color was Betty's face behind a bulletproof glass window. After that, everything was of something that seemed right out of an illusion.

He was mostly confused, enraged over the pain that tore through his body, but the raw power of having the ability to smash the wall made him smirk a little. He smashed the wall with his right hand, which turned green somehow and broke through the bulletproof window. He smashed the rest of the way in and destroyed the gamma lab all around him, leaving everybody injured in the lab, but no one died. He ripped through the wall, destroyed a table, removed the gamma machine that doused him, and kicked a large desk right out of a window and it went flying several hundred yards into the air before it disappeared from sight. He roared in anger because his body was still in agony but he was also roaring over the brawns in his body. He felt like he was the king of the world and even though he could only see flashes across his vision, he saw one sight that horrified the life out of him.

Betty's unconscious body laying on the floor with her head right on top of her father's body. Fearing the worst, the green creature gasped and crouched down to put a hand over her head as some way to comfort her. Even after sensing that she was still alive, he looked down at the palms of his green hands and made a fist after sneering. Fury washed over Bruce and he punched a ten square foot hole in the wall and smashed his body through.

After twenty minutes of leaping three to four miles in the air, he settled into a suburban neighborhood and all his rage slowly disappeared from within him as he sat down near a tall building and laid his head back. He sighed deeply and watched as his own hands shrink to normal human hands and his green skin pigmentation slowly turn pale and fade back to a caucasian color. His heart slowed to one hundred beats per minute and the muscles on his arms caved in. He closed his eyes for three seconds and when he opened them with an exhale of breath, he found his vision cleared up and that he was sitting on the ground, shirtless, shoeless, and his purple pants with rips in the knee areas. He could only remember a small bit of what happened but once he put the pieces together of what happened, he picked himself up and walked back to the lab, keeping his left hand on his belt to keep he stretched out purple pants from falling.

Days after that incident, Bruce went to go visit Betty in the hospital while she slept. Her face was covered in cuts and bruises but the doctors reassured him that there were no fatal injuries, only superficial ones. The last thing he would ever want to do is hurt the coworker that has been his friend since Empire State University in New York. He put a hand and rubbed her silky brown hair with it, making sure to be soft and gentle and whispered that he was sorry for everything that has happened to her.

Just seconds later, a hand was put on his shoulder and he turned to see Betty's father, Thaddeus Ross in an arm sling, forcing him to leave the building before he could see Betty conscious. He made it to the doors and turned back to see several MP soldiers moving towards him and he quickly hightailed it out of there.

The next few years of his life involved him being on the run, never staying in one place for no more than a few months. Ever since he left New York, he headed East. He settled in England for three months before the military came kicking down his door, hunting him down like a dog before he escaped. On the run, he was able to deduce that Betty's father was behind the hunt that was on him, deducing that the general's intent was to weaponize whatever happened to him and use it as a weapon. Feeling the power at first hand, he knew it was far too dangerous to be used as a weapon and spent his life running to make sure that he was never found and doing everything in his power to eliminate whatever 'disease' that he was infected with.

Just when he was able to get it all under control, a bomb is dropped on his house with Betty and General Ross inside and both perished in front of his eyes.

Ever since then, instead of trying to suppress the hulk within him, he spent nine months learning to control him and even attempted at a subconscious conversation with the hulk so he could learn more about what goes on inside his mind.

His current location was in the country of Madagascar, where he was working as a freelance doctor helping whoever he could help. He was in the village in the middle of the jungle, administering vaccines to children with a small group of American doctors helping him. The four American doctors were already in Madagascar by the time Bruce arrived there and they agreed to work with Dr. 'Bannister' to help these children.

Once Bruce finished giving a small and frail boy a shot for the Measles, he puts the cap back on and speaks to the boy in his native language: "There, that wasn't so bad, was it? Now you won't get sick from the Measles, I promise." He pats the smiling boy on the shoulder before he turns to one of the American doctors that were named Kate Waynesboro. "That's another boy vaccinated."

Kate nodded in confirmation, "We're running low on vials. I'll have Wilson and Chandler bring in more." She turns away vaccinate a girl who had been waiting in line. "Once we finish up with these group of kids, we got another vaccination point to get to."

Bruce put his glasses away before answering, "I have just enough medicine for all these kids before I have to refill the bottle." He vaccinates another kid before saying something in their native language. Once they finished up with vaccinating all the kids and feeding them food and hydrating them with water, the two packed up their medicine in a cooler and took it back to their jeep and waited on the two other scientists who were finishing up with their vaccinations.

Bruce loaded the red cooler into the back of the jeep while Kate climbed into the driver's seat. He climbed in the passenger seat beside her. "Don't forget, we have another shipment of vaccines coming in. The government was generous enough to donate vaccines to us as long as we asked for no fee." The government had the vaccines, they just chose not to administer them to doctors if it cost a price. "It really upsets me that while America does have the resources to produce vaccines, they do nothing to hand them out."

"I know how that feels," Kate agreed, "Back at my old job, we had so many resources for so many things but due to strict budget cuts and whatnot, most of those resources went to waste."

"You always mention the last job you worked at but you never said what you worked as. You just keep it as a mystery."

"You always keep your past a mystery, Dr. 'Banner'," she made sure he didn't miss the smirk on her face and she made sure that she didn't miss the shocked look on his face. She started the car and shifted gears. "Everyone thought you died when General Ross and his daughter died. How'd you survive?"

Obviously, nobody knows that he has a secret life where every time he gets mad, he turns green.

"Complicated." He blocked Betty and General Ross out of his mind as much as he could. "Trust me, my life would be a bore to you. It's just dull and boring." He could hear growling in his head, indicating that he was upsetting Hulk by calling him dull and boring. Bruce mentally reassured him that it was nothing and to not be offended. "Your life is a walk in the park compared to mine."

"I took notes on your life," Kate continued, "I know that you aced in med school, worked in gamma, took three years of Brazillian Jiu Jitsu, and you are a nomad. You travel from country to country."

"Call it a personal hobby." Bruce looked in the side view mirror to see the other two doctors coming up. "Here comes Wilson and Chandler, we should get going."

"You know, Bruce, you can talk to me about anything," she reassured, "I've had my fair share of secrets before so I'm a good person to talk to."

He was inwardly laughing nervously over that, doubting every word she said for a single second. "Thank you, but I prefer to be alone. I just want to help whoever I can and just try to get by."

"Well, I'm also trying to get by with this one thing that wouldn't possibly understand." Now she had piqued his interest but he refused to step down...to a degree and she already spoke before he could say anything. "My boyfriend put this one goal he has in mind first before he puts me. I was always the most second important thing to him and that is why I broke up with him. He wasn't surprised at all, he anticipated the breakup somehow. You got a girlfriend?"

He shook his head. "I'm not interested in a relationship at this point. I'm sorry about your boyfriend."

"He was a know-it-all anyway. Do you have any plans after today? Any country you plan on traveling to next?"

He always premeditated what country he would travel to next and his next country in mind would be to South Africa. He really was a nomad, traveling from country to country for the purpose of just staying one step ahead because there is somebody out there hunting him. Somebody in a location unknown to him was hunting him down because he was the Hulk and whoever it was, was not the military or the government. He was constantly on the move, leaving nothing behind but the one thing that he always took along with him whenever he left was his pet dog, Ricky, whom he saved when the poor dog was trapped in a garbage truck about to be crushed to death in Brazil. Aside from that, he is a true loner and he doesn't even go by his last name.

* * *

After the sunset, Bruce raced back home because he was having this feeling that something bad was going to happen and his instincts were usually never wrong. Never, ever, wrong.

He charged through the front door of his apartment and quickly went over to his backpack where his computer was. His pet dog was hungry and he quickly fed him while he talks to him, "Ricky, we might someone trailing us so we have to be ready for anything." He sets his computer down on a table and turns on these homemade jammers on his cellphone that he made. Basically, if he uses his computer while the jammer on his phone was turned on, then no one can track him from the outside as any kind of technology with a Level 4 and up system would be disabled and these people hunting him were extremely intelligent and packed with advanced tech.

He switched to a secure and encrypted browser before he searched the web on his computer for his current location. He hacked into TV cameras at all the airports to see if he could spot somebody that looked shady. He was looking for caucasian individuals because he knew the people that were after him were not native to the continent of Africa.

There were several airplanes from the United States coming in and he plugged in a flash drive with custom made drives and he searched through the backgrounds of every single individual that came off that plane, including the staff members. Not a single individual fit any known profile on his case but he knew that there was something up with this one man who pulled over to the side and checked his phone. When Bruce paused the footage, he zoomed the camera in to see static on the man's screen. Such a small device the homemade jammers were but they were long-ranged and powerful enough to disable a person with a Level 4 system phone at the international airport two miles away.

"He might be trouble," he says quietly to Ricky, "Thing is, he is not added to my profile list of suspects. Maybe he's just rich." But nothing could be overlooked. "Then again, those shady guys in glasses that were chasing me since Germany were also rich so I can't overlook a single detail."

He pulled up the image of the man with the phone and pulled out an image on his computer on a man in black sunglasses that were after him. He placed the two images on the screen and compared them. The man had the same jawline, tanned skin, and oval-shaped head. The only difference was his eyes were obscured by black sunglasses. That was still enough justification to get him ready to pack up and leave. He pushes the computer screen down but leaves it slightly open and he looks over at Ricky with a deep sigh, "Looks like we're packing our bags again."

Hulk, who was currently talking to Burce in his mind, was telling Banner that he was being a coward for running and from there, Bruce was talking to Bruce while Hulk talked back in his mind. Of course, if anyone was listening in, then it would look like Bruce was talking aloud to his imaginary friend.

"Hulk, you just don't understand. I can't risk you being release, not yet at least. If I hulk-out, then it could be the end for both of us." He opened up his computer all the way and searches up places for him to go next.

_Bruce Banner a coward._

"I am not a coward, Hulk." He searched for the next flights to the country of Australia. There was one plane taking off for Australia in seven hours at eight pm. "Just because I'm choosing not to fight does not make me a coward."

_BANNER COWARD!_

"Stop behaving like a five-year-old!" Bruce scolded before he quickly closed up the computer and stuffed it in his green bag. Ricky, being a well-trained and intelligent dog, moved over to his empty food bowl, picked it up and brought it to Bruce, who packed it in his bag. "Good boy, Ricky."

_Hulk wants to fight._

"I don't want to fight."

_Baby arms. They have baby arms, Hulk beat them._

"It's not about winning or losing, it's about principle."

_Principle?_

"Yes, principle." He moves over to the kitchen area and packs up food that he is going to take with him along the way. Once he got out his leather suitcase, he folded up the clothes that he was able to carry and then the rest, he made a small and contained the fire in a makeshift fireplace and he burned everything that he left DNA on. He may have been a genius scientist and one of the smartest people in the world (having seven ), the earliest science class that he placed out of in high school was forensics and he knew that if he left even a strand of hair behind, these super-smart people after him would be able to study the 'uniqueness' of his blood. He disposed of the bedsheets, clothing that he wasn't going to take with him, and all the food that he didn't have the stomach to finish. he felt like Dexter as he cleaned up after himself, making sure he leaves no DNA evidence behind.

_Still coward._

* * *

London, England

In a lab, sat a man in a leather brown hair tapping his green finger on the arm. He rubs the sweat off his forehead and shouts out in the distance behind him, "Gargoyle, get in here!" He rests his chin in the palm of his hand as he talks to himself and looks at the screen in front of him. "I can't believe that it all worked out perfectly. I never doubted myself. If I only had this intelligence back in high school, I would be attending seven different colleges all at once. I would've made it to ESU."

The door behind him opened and a man of average height in a pair of blue overalls with gray skin and an elongated skull came walking into the room with his fists clenched. "What would the great Leader want today, Mr. Sterns?" a voice with a Russian accent asked.

Samuel Sterns turned his elongated green head in Gargoyle's direction and ground his teeth at him. "Don't call me Sterns, only Leader." He turned all the way to face Gargoyle. "Just like I predicted, Banner is in Madagascar. How would I know this?" He grabs the computer in front of him and shows him live screen footage of static, the same static from the sunglasses man's phone in Madagascar. "Banner is using a homemade jammer on Level 4 systems and the phone that Igor is using has a Level 4 Data System.

"Maybe it was a coincidence," Gargoyle suggested, not wanting to buy that his 'Leader' was right once again and it was starting to piss him off. They both had high IQs but Leader somehow knew so much more than him. Must've been that gamma radiation that transformed him into that green-skinned, big cranium head monster that he is while he transformed due to radiation from a missile site in Russia. "I mean, maybe it was an American government there, or perhaps the CIA."

"Shut it you miserable troll," Leader scolded. "The CIA has no reason to set up a jammer for random passengers with Level 4 Data Systems. Based on the intensity of the static, the jammer that is setting this phone off is two miles away and I just searched, based on my knowledge in geography, that there are three different apartment buildings just south and southwest of the international airport in Madagascar." He gets up from his seat as he makes his point, "If my calculations are correct, then that means Banner would've already have seen that Igor has been caught and will be trying to get the hell out of dodge." He turns back to his computer and opens up a new file. "We need to act fast. Igor, being the competent assassin that he is, will either succeed or fail and I already have a recipe on how to capture Banner alive."

Gargoyle rolled his eyes, "Oh goodie, another plan. What has your almost precognition told you about, Leader?" he asks with a deep tone of sarcasm.

Leader ignored him and he closed his eyes to work out all possible outcomes of his plan. So far, there was Igor and four other agents in Madagascar and Banner was somewhere in a short distance. He was well aware of the fact that American scientists were vaccinating children and there was no doubt that Banner was one of them due to his moral code in helping people. He predicted three outcomes and the percentages of these outcomes. "Banner would not book a flight, he would find another means of transportation. If he did buy a ticket, then it's a ruse to try and throw us off of his scent. He made it five years without getting captured using ruses and red herrings."

"He's that smart," Gargoyle praised the scientist.

He rubbed the side of his temples to relax, "If he is trying to find a boat, then the nearest harbor from the airport is right in the crosshairs of an ongoing civil war. If Banner is trying to escape via harbor, we can capture him there and from what I predicted," he said to Gargoyle but didn't bother regarding him or even opening his eyes, "There are three outcomes. The first outcome: Banner gets caught in the crosshairs of the battle and the assassins capture him. Percentage of this happening: Twenty-five percent. The second outcome: Banner escapes both our agents and the rebels and does all this without hulking out. Percentage of this happening: Twenty-five percent."

"And the last outcome?"

"Banner gets caught in the crosshairs of the rebels and our agents and he hulks-out. Percentage of this happening: Fifty." He finally turns and regards Gargoyle with disdain, "If anything happens to this operation, it will be all your fault you miserable troll."

"What?!" Gargoyle was shocked and offended. "Why me? I didn't do anything?"

Leader pointed a finger at the large-headed dwarf and barked, "You were the one who suggested Igor and those others work for us. If anything happens then it is because you chose the most incompetent agents."

"You just said-"

"Shut it!"

Gargoyle covered his face with his hands, fearful that his 'Leader' would lunge and attack him and he flinched when Leader smashed down on the table out of anger. "Banner does not deserve the power which he wields, I should've been the one volunteering for that gamma testing. That power belongs to nobody but me!" He turns back to his right-hand man and snaps off more orders, "Gargoyle, tell Igor and his men to arm their weapons up with Etorphine and to use it on Banner before and if he becomes the Hulk. Get a Hulkbuster Robot prepped and fully loaded as well. Make sure it is switched the stealth mode, I want Banner alive at all costs."

Gargoyle runs off to the back of the lab to unleash a Hulkbuster Android from its cell. He types in a code and its arms up.

Leader turns back to the screen and makes a fist and ground his teeth again before whispering to himself, "Soon, that power will be all mine."

* * *

**Hello again, The Alpha Gray Wolf is back. Yes, this is the first prequel to _Homecoming_ and _Lethal Protector_, takes place in May of 2017. The second prequel will probably be uploaded either before this year is over or next year. I tried my best to be original with this concept and use a material that has never been used before. If you like it, then favorite it, leave a review, and constructive criticism is always acceptible. Thank you and I hope you enjoy it.**


	2. Argon

Bruce had no intention of going on an airplane but it was used as a red herring to draw away the people chasing after his tail. He already booked a private agent to take him up the coast of Africa. There was boat ready for him at the harbor and he cleaned up the last of his DNA before he took his jeep with his dog and drove out. When he got out into a large open field, he came across the jeep that the American scientists came in, the only thing is was that none of the scientists were inside the vehicle. "It's nothing," he reassured himself. "Maybe they're using the bathroom." He looked out into the distance to see if he could find them but he came up with nothing. Then Ricky started barking hysterically in Bruce's opposite direction. He looked over to where Ricky was barking and saw Kate laying stomach first in a ditch with her hands on the back of her head. "What the hell?" The harbor was just a kilometer away but him ignoring that his friend was lying in a ditch protecting herself would be like him stabbing himself in the forearm with a butcher blade. He puts the car into park and leaves the suitcase in. "Stay, Ricky."

Bruce crouched down and walked over to the ditch Kate was laying in. When she noticed him, she quickly urged him to get out of sight and he hid in the five feet deep ditch with her. "What is going on here?" he asked in a whisper voice. "Where are the others?"

"They got them," Kate gulped in terror as a tear streamed down her cheek. "The rebels got them."

After hearing this, Bruce laid as flat as he could on the ground beside her. "What rebels?"

"A group of rebels is taking over the harbor and they killed my friends. I barely escaped with my life."

_Hulk wants to fight. Real fight!_

"Not now," he quietly hissed at Hulk in his head. He noticed that Kate saw him talk to himself and he quickly spoke to move on before the subject was explored, "I have a boat at the harbor, come with me and we can get out of here."

She shook her head in fear. "No, there are mines out there. Land mines. Please, help me…"

Bruce looked over the ditch before looking back at his jeep. "Follow me to my car and we'll figure out a way to get to the boat." He holds out his hand. "Take my hand and I'll get you to safety."

"But," she whimpered, "The landmines…"

"We will skip over them. We still have a kilometer to go before we reach the boat. I'll get us both out of here."

Now after hearing that sentence, her bullshit detector went off. She looked at Bruce, the tears starting to dry out and she narrows her eyes at him. "Why the hell do you need to escape from the boat when you can just take a plane?"

Bruce felt a lump in his throat as he struggled for some kind of excuse. He thought of one and just as he was about to answer one, a landmine went off in the far distance and body parts went raining everywhere and a loud explosion echoing across the field. Kate put her hands over her head again as she flinched and Bruce laid the upper half of his body on her just in case. As soon as the aftermath of the explosion cooled down, gunshots began ringing all throughout the open field and the loud noises pierced both Bruce and Kate in the ears and they screamed in pain and covered their ears.

On the main road, Ricky was barking from the passenger seat of the jeep despite Bruce's protests not to. Ricky jumped out of the car and ran for the ditch right as a mortar shell hit the jeep and blew it to pieces. Ricky landed right on top of Bruce's. He pushes himself off of Kate's back. Bruce looked back at the jeep and saw nothing but burned car parts and fire.

"Shit, we are literally caught in a warzone," he said, "We have to get to that boat."

"The landmines," she reminded.

"I know. I'll figure something out." A bullet struck the ground beside him and he jumped out of his pants and got back to cover. "Oh, my freaking god."

Ammunition from assault rifles was being fired at them from all directions except the front. The rebels were shouting something at them in their native languages before they ran forward to meet their targets.

Bruce risked a peek over the ditch and observed closely as dozens of rebels with assault rifles came running their way. He looked back in the direction of the boat but his eyes gazed towards the field that he had to cross first. "We have to make a run for it, otherwise these guys will shoot us on sight."

"The landmines!"

"I promise to do something about the landmines," Bruce almost snapped back in irritation after her umpteenth mention of the landmines. "Just follow my lead and we will survive."

_Hulk wants to fight. Let Hulk free._

"Now is not the time, especially with Kate around us!"

It was times like this that risked him stressing out to the point of losing his temper. He has dealt with pressure before but not like this. Not when his only means of transportation was in a million pieces and people with machine guns are rushing to kill him from one side while there is an open field of landmines on the other side and you have a whiny scientist who would rather stay here than to fight for survival. It was times like this where he knew that the only way to escape death to see another day and to save Kate's life because they were dying left and right, then it would be to let the big guy unleashed.

Bruce jumped out, yelling in surrender before being gunned down by assault rifles and fifty caliber machine guns on small jeeps. Before he was gunned down, he tried to reason with them but he mistranslated 'angry' as 'hungry' and he was immediately shot up and they left him there, not bothering to check the ditch Kate was hiding in. When he was laying down in a puddle of blood, his anger spiked. His brown eyes turned green and he ground his teeth together as he gripped a rock and crushed it in his hand. His skin was turning a dark green color as he quietly growls and starts to expand.

The watch on Bruce's left wrist broke off and landed on the ground. He pushed himself up to his feet as his left back pocket ripped and his wallet fell out and landed near his feet. The laces on his shoes stretched out before his feet punctured the tips of his shoes and the sleeves around his legs ripped and exposed more green skin. A large foot stepped out of the shoes and a deeper growling was heard.

Kate looked up at the green creature's back to see the remains of Bruce's gray colored jacket and black t-shirt rip to shreds and fall off, exposing a superhuman body of unmatched strength with deep green skin and stood at ten feet tall. "Bruce?" she whispered.

Hulk charges out into the field and catches up with the jeep that shot him. He grabs it by the back and knocks the gunner in the back out while the driver ditches. Hulk throws the jeep high into the air and it soars off into the distance.

Kate grabs Ricky by the collar and they both keep their bodies as close to the ground as possible and they watch the events play out in front of them, except it's all a blur to them.

They see the wind picking up dust and creating a small sandstorm that surrounded Hulk and the rebels. Hulk was smashing and bashing at the vehicles with guns in the back and swatting the rebels on the ground away like flies. Those who were still out of reach from the Hulk stayed as far away as possible, avoiding him like the plague, and shooting bullets that were bouncing right off his skin like pebbles off a balloon.

Hulk picked up two rebels and held them high above his head. He threw one into a group of rebels before he threw the other rebel like a softball into an individual rebel. Three of the remaining rebels tried escaping but they stepped on a hidden landmine each and were blown to smithereens. Two more rebels were trying to escape and Hulk jumped over to a jeep he took out and kicked it like a soccer ball at the two soldiers, hitting them with it and dropping them.

"That's Bruce?" Kate asked Ricky again with a whisper, but it was more she was asking herself that question. "_He_ is the Hulk?"

Hulk looked over his shoulder back to where Kate and Ricky were hiding and growled, baring his yellow teeth. The Hulk's dark green hair was long enough to have a strand of hair covering his right eye and he shook his head to see clearly. Taking a huge stomp on the ground as he turned, he walked over to the ditch and crouched down to one knee and tilted his head upon seeing Kate and Ricky back away slightly.

"Bruce, it's me," Kate reassured as she stood up to her feet and looked at the green monster standing in front of her. "You told me not to run away and I didn't."

She holds her hand up as a way of saying everything was okay. She repeated "Everything's okay" a few times before she slowly climbed out of the ditch, eyes glued to the green monster. Hulk tilts his head again and puts up his left hand up to reflect off of her hand. Their hands slowly move towards each other and their skin almost comes into contact until Hulk grunted in annoyance. His super-hearing picked up on the sounds of air being released from a gun. He feels tiny pricks on his back and he turns to look over his shoulder to see three people in black suits and sunglasses shooting at Hulk's back with tranquilizers. The darks bounce off his skin and he stomps on them with his bare feet. Anger rises again as he gestures for Kate and Ricky to get back down and he goes after the three agents that are annoying him.

"Oh shit," the first one curses. "Go live!" He backs away as the other two abandon him and he switches to live ammunition. Leader had told him that bullets will not work but he was willing to take his chances and just as he got rid of the small tranq gun and pulled out a Mini-Uzi, the Hulk grabbed him by the chest and picked him up like a doll.

The other two agents switched to their AK-47s and shot at Hulk but most of the bullets hit the first agent in the back and killed him instantly. Hulk tosses the corpse aside and moved onto them. He walks over to the side, picking up a large boulder about the size of a car and obviously too heavy for a regular man to pick and holds him above his head with a strong and anger will to throw it at the two.

The second agent stopped firing and pulled out a grenade and threw it at Hulk's feet. An explosion engulfs the Hulk similar to light lighting up a room. The two agents barely flinched and looked at each other as black smoke from the aftermath of the grenade swarmed Hulk. "Did that do anything?" the second agent asked the third.

"Leader wants him alive," the third agent said back.

There was no time to think before the rock went flying their way and took both agents out and sent them flying dozens of feet before they reconnected to the ground again. Hulk stepped out of the black smoke and used one hand to wipe off a piece of debris on his shoulder before smirking at the work he has done. He said one sentence in a slow fashion with a primitive voice: "Hulk is proud."

"Did that really happen?" Kate climbed out of the ditch on her hands and knees. "I cannot believe that just happened." She felt something prick her finger and she winced before looking down at the problem: One of the tranq darts on the ground pricked her index finger. She was knocked out before she could even comprehend the pain.

**(Note: Etorphine is the kind of tranq that Dexter uses on his victims).**

Hulk looked over at the unconscious Kate and walked over to her to check on her. He picked her up gently with his big hands and very gingerly removed the tranq dart from her index finger without crushing it. "Kate is hurt," he said aloud but was actually speaking to Bruce in his subconscious. "What does Hulk do?"

_Get her to safety,_ Bruce's voice spoke back to him in his mind. _Get her to the boat._

"Ricky," Hulk turns to the dog, "Hulk will save you." The dog's ears perk up and the green monster picks up Ricky and carries both of them like he was cradling a baby.

Hulk walks across the minefield, constantly looking over his shoulder because Bruce was urging him to. "Danger over, Kate and Ricky safe."

_It is never that easy, Hulk. Those people in the sunglasses were hunting us._

"Sunglasses guys were hunting me, not you."

_Same thing. Kate and Ricky aren't safe with us._

"Safe with Hulk."

_No, no, no, not safe with Hulk, in danger with Hulk._

"Shut up, you puny human."

Bruce was about to retort to Hulk back in his head until he alerted Hulk that something did not feel right and that he should look over his shoulder one more time just to make sure. Hulk grunted like a five-year-old but obliged and turned around to meet a metal fist to his face. Hulk fell forward and almost landed on top of Kate and Ricky but turned his body in time so he would land on his back.

He looked up at the new threat above him and spat out a droplet of blood. A robot taller than him painted green with the words 'ANGER' written across its chest in blood-red, a minigun on the left shoulder, a buzzsaw for a left hand, a mallet for a right fist, and an emotionless expression on its face which lacked any eyes to see (it's a robot and robots don't need eyes to see (in some scenarios)).

The minigun aims for him and begins spinning up. Hulk protected Kate and Ricky by turning its back towards the robot and felt painful bullets pierce into his back and actually began breaking his skin but his regenerative process was already in the works. Instead of firing normal bullets, the Hulkbuster Android was firing gamma charged bullets that could actually affect the Hulk.

Hulk backhands the android but it catches its finger with the mallet hand and cuts Hulk's skin with the buzzsaw. Hulk elbows the android in the face but little to no damage was bestowed upon it as the android flipped Hulk over its shoulder. Hulk landed on his side, once again, protecting Ricky and Kate, and lunges to bite the android in the foot. The android shakes Hulk off of him and begins punching Hulk in the face with his mallet hand.

Hulk roared back in pain and wanted to do something but Bruce told him they couldn't really fight because they were holding an unconscious woman and dog in their hands so fighting was not the best option right now.

Hulk uses his right hand to catch the buzzsaw hand, but he actually had to put in the effort to keep the running buzzsaw from cutting him while holding onto Kate and Rick in his other hand. Meanwhile, for the android, it used its mallet hand to punch Hulk dozens of times in the face, almost drawing blood. Hulk kicks the android away and leaps over its head and runs for the boat with the android in pursuit.

Hulk steps onto a landmine and it explodes underneath the sole but did nothing more than annoy the living crap out of him and with his thick skin, he was able to shield both Kate and Ricky from the blast. He rushes over to the boat, sees that it is empty of any kind of boat driver and he loads them both in and pushes the boat out to seat. He pushed them toward the direction of the mainland. He quickly waved goodbye before he turned to continue his fight with the android.

Hulk throws a punch toward the android's face but this does not affect the robot in any way and he smashes his fists against the android's chest. He punches him several more times across the stomach area and picks up another boulder and smacks it across the android's face but whoever built this robot sure knew what they were doing because this thing was as impenetrable as the Hulk.

The Hulkbuster Android opens its mouth up and shoots green flames at Hulk. The green creature was burned to a slight degree but he still managed to heal from the burns. The attacks from the robot did not stop there: It spun up its minigun again and shot everything it had at Hulk while simultaneously dousing him in gamma-irradiated flames.

Hulk leaps over the robot again and when he lands behind it, he punches it in the back of its head and it falls forward on its front. Its front flips from the ground to its feet and backhanded Hulk with the mallet hand and sent Hulk flying back several feet and dropping him on his back. Hulk sat up and clapped his hands together to send a powerful wave of thunder towards the robot before it could shoot him with more gamma-irradiated bullets. The robot flies into the air but used thrusters from the soles of its feet to maintain elevation in the air and fly high above Hulk's reach. The green monster was not having it and leapt up into the air and tackled the robot to the ground with him landing on top of it and punching the robot in the face.

The robot cuts Hulk in the side and shoves him off before climbing to his feet. Hulk grabbed the android by the eye areas and swung him like a baseball bat out into the open sea. It just used its thrusters again to get back onto land and that's where their fight resumed with typical punches and blows being exchanged. Hulk was fully aware of the fact that the madder he gets, the stronger he gets but there was nothing to be angry about this moment. He was having way too much fun fighting this robot who thinks he can best the green monster.

The robot attacked Hulk one more time and he used the buzzsaw to cut Hulk down the chest, right on the sternum area and green blood sprayed onto the robot's face. Hulk growled and jumped back to look down at his sounds that were now healing. Despite his skin repairing itself in less than ten seconds, it still pissed Hulk off to hell that he was cut. He looked up at the robot and growled.

The robot sensed...anger and stepped back. Hulk grabbed the robot before anything can be done afterward and swung him like a baton into the ground. The robot was starting to fall apart because the limb came out of the robot's socket but thrusters built into the arm made the arm fly back right into the socket area like nothing ever happened. This time Hulk wrapped his hands around the mallet hand and crushed it in his palm like a walnut. The robot did not heal from this damage this time, apparently it's strength was far more Superior to a Hulk in a calm state and when Hulk became angry, he lost that advantage.

Hulk threw the robot to the ground and kicked the head right off. The thrusters in the head activated mid-flight but Hulk reached into the headless part of the robot between the shoulders and ripped out the wires. The head fell to the ground and Hulk crushed it underneath his foot. The robot was still active and continued to attack Hulk even when decapitated but he was getting his ass handed to him.

Because the robot couldn't really see where he was going, he relied on his built-in radar and swung in the direction of Hulk with the buzzsaw. Hulk catches the buzzsaw hand and he rips it from the robot's arm. Like the head, he tired the wires out of the hand so the hand could not return to its original place.

Hulk was now done with this robot and was getting ready to eliminate it once and for all. He reeled his hand back as far as he could and punched a hole in the robot's chest so fast that not even a photo could be taken. He destroyed the main drives in the robot and it fell on its back, finally defeated. Hulk huffed and puffed in relief and slight exhaustion, he stepped over the damaged robot before walking back to where he pushed the boat off, muttering "Puny robot,' under his breath.

He dived into the water and swam to catch up with the boat. As he surfaced right beside the boat, he reformered back into Bruce so he could turn back. He climbed into the boat and checked on Kate. She was sleeping like a baby and Ricky was licking Bruce's face pic in excitement. "Hi, Ricky. I got you out of there, didn't I?" He grabs a rag from the floor and uses it to dry himself off before he picked up a paddle and started rowing.

* * *

"Gargoyle, give me a field report, now!" Leader's voice echoed off the walls and frightened the Gargoyle sitting back in the corner. "My Android is failing to follow command it is making me upset. Making me very upset. I need to hear on that field report from Igor."

The Gargoyle was reluctant to answer to his 'Leader' and it took him almost through seconds before he appeased him. But when he did answer, he answered with stammers. "I...do regret to inform you that our field report is not looking so good. It appears that Igor stepped on a landline and blew himself up. They jumped the gun and outcome number three, the one you said had a fifty percent chance of happening, happened."

"I see…" The Leader's voice did not change in any way, no indication of anger or emotion of any other kind in his voice and it was scaring the living crap out of Gargoyle. "What happened to the other three?"

"One of them was caught in the crosshairs while the other two were hospitalized."

"What of...the Hulkbuster Android?"

Gargoyle's voice choked out of nervousness before he gave his answer as: "We have plenty of parts to make more."

For the longest time, Leader said nothing and he finally let out his emotions and slammed his fists into the table again. He gets up from where he's sitting and moves over to Gargoyle. Once the little midget was within arm's reach, he kicked in the stomach and shoved him to the ground. "What is the matter with you, you miserable troll? Can't you do anything right? You had to send out only one Hulkbuster android?! Explaining your reasoning!" It looked like Leader was blaming all of his faults on Gargoyle for something he had no control over, like a spoiled brat. "Anything to say?!"

"Leader, it was you who sent the android out there. You sent only one, Sterns."

"Don't call me Sterns, Yuri Topolov! I know you want to be cured and if you disrespect me, I will force you to live the rest of your life as a gargoyle." He yells out in frustration again. "I want Banner found and I want a lot more androids after him. This time, he will not escape. Since he escaped, he would most likely head towards the inland of Africa and travel somewhere up north. But one thing is for sure is that he won't be staying in Africa anymore.

* * *

The boat driver, an elderly man with gray hair and sunglasses (**Stan** **Lee**) came back to discover that his boat was gone and his jaw dropped to the floor. "I think I'll quit while I'm ahead." He didn't want to be fired...again.


	3. Scandium

Kate woke back up with a sore feeling in her throat. She flips herself onto her stomach and pushes herself up with her hands to stand up. When she looked around, she saw Bruce sitting down on a bed back to normal but without a shirt. She would be lying if she said that he wasn't muscular and ripped. She slapped herself awake and said hi to him as he put a shirt over his head. "What the hell just happened?"

"Well," Bruce reluctantly began, "You pricked yourself in the finger what we scientists call Etorphine. In general terms, it's called M99. Or, in regular terms, a knockout drug." He calls over to Ricky from the corner of the room with steel walls and Ricky climbs into Bruce's lap and he pets the dog. "Who's a good boy?"

"What happened after I blacked out?"

"What do you remember last?" He was praying to God that she didn't try to run away when he hulked-out but Hulk reassured him that Kate didn't even do anything remotely related to trying to isolate herself from him. "Do you remember when I turned a little green?"

No, she didn't forget and seeing Bruce transform into such a muscular creature with the strength that men could only dream of was something that was permanently planted in her brain. "More like a lot of green." She told him that she didn't try to run away or anything (as far as she remembers) and she was in awe upon seeing the green creature try to reach out and gently touch her hand. Was there a subconscious reason behind this or something that Bruce/Hulk would always do to people who are initially fearful of 'him'? "You were very kind."

"I was?" Hulk growled in the back of his brain and wanted him to correct his statement. "I mean, he was?"

"What in the world happened to you that caused you to be like this."

"It's kind of a long story and the less you know, the better." She refused to back down so Bruce decided to appease her by giving her an abridged version of his origins. "And I'm not exactly sure as to why, but anger triggers the Big Guy coming out. But over the years, we've started to work together and I let him out when I feel like it is safe for both of us or if it's necessary. We both have a hand on the wheel."

"And how long have you been like this?"

"Going on five years now. I've been running for five years as well. I've been running from the government for two years because they wanted to weaponize me but now I'm being chased by someone above the government. One man or two and they are relentless and tiring. I'm not exactly sure who they are but I do know that their intelligence is off the charts and I always have to stay six steps ahead because one step isn't enough."

She nodded in understanding after comprehending everything for thirty seconds before she finally acknowledged the elephant in the room. "Where are we?"

"On a cruise ship sailing through the Indian Ocean," he answered with a shrug. "There's nothing wrong with it, just thought that a cruise would be relaxing."

"We are…" she said slowly, making sure every word is comprehensible, "Legit, on a ship? Where is this thing even heading?"

"It's a simple cruise through the Indian Ocean from Madagascar to Egypt. You've been out for thirty-six hours and I would've woken you up but it didn't seem right at the time so I let you sleep in. I'm hoping you didn't leave any valuables behind."

She remembered her apartment complex and remembered how she packed only a suitcase for the trip and it was filled with two or three pairs of clothing and a lab coat. She lost that suitcase when her jeep was ambushed by the rebels but she didn't miss it. "I didn't bring any fine china with me so I should be good. What about you?"

"Nothing more valuable than my blood so I made sure I got every single trace of my DNA out of there." He vaguely remembered Hulk getting cut by some kind of surgical buzzsaw and some of his green blood went everywhere but by now, the blood would be contaminated and rendered useless along with what other traces of DNA he left behind.

"Anyway, thanks for saving my life, Bruce. I do owe you one and I promise to pay you back somehow." She moved over to the bed and sat down beside him, their bodies only inches away from each other but she did learn her shoulder on his shoulder. "Your secret is safe with me and I'll help you in any way I can."

He felt this lingering feeling welling up inside of him that he hasn't felt since he first met Betty Ross. Kate was no Betty but that is what made Kate unique to Bruce, she was her person. Maybe it was some kind of chemical element within him that is trying to replace his grieving nature of Betty with warmth and content for Kate. Or maybe he was being selfish and yearned for a companion besides Hulk. Either way, it just felt good to have someone to sit down next to him and talk to and even share secrets with. Ricky was a good dog but he was a _dog_.

He felt Kate close her eyes with a sigh like she's going back to bed. _The aftermath of the M99_, Bruce thought to himself. "Maybe we should get some sleep; it is still nighttime after all."

Kate patted down on the bed before saying, "Is there only one bed in here?"

"You can take it; I'll sleep on the ground." Ricky jumps off his lap and takes shelter in the corner as he reaches underneath the bed to pull out a sleeping bag that he purchased from one of the stores on the cruise ship. He laid it flat out on the ground and watched Kate sit on the bed after he was done, "Goodnight, I guess." She responds with a good night before they both snuggle into their beds and drift off to sleep.

They both wake up hours later to the sound of a ship's horn blaring. Bruce stretches from laying on the solid floor for a few hours before he walks out into a hallway with the walls made of metal and doors with a circular window in the center but had covered over. He walks down one end of the hall and pushes open another door to come outside into the fresh air. The sounds of the waves breaking against the ship and the call of birds as they soared across the blue ocean stretched as far as the eye can see made Bruce sigh in relaxation, feeling peace for the first time in a couple of hours. He walks up to the railing and puts his hands on before just staring out into the open ocean, spending maybe four or five seconds looking in one direction before looking in the other direction. "This is beautiful," he says to himself, "Just beautiful." He remembered that he snuck himself and his two companions on this ship without a ticket so he was technically a stowaway. "If only I could live on this ship."

He sensed a half-asleep Kate walk up beside him to his left and yawned. She looked out to the serenity and shared the same feeling of peace that Bruce was feeling. She puts her hands on the railings but her hand went right on top of Bruce's. He noticed but did not bother doing anything. It was just so nice to share this type of peace with someone. But then that peace was shattered when she started speaking.

"So, what's the plan from here once we go to Egypt?"

He looked at her and narrowed his eyes in confusion, "What makes you think I have a plan? I plan to get as far away as possible from these people who are trying to hunt you down."

"What about me?"

"What about you?"

"There is a really good chance that whoever was shooting at you when you were green saw that you were touching my hand." She remembered that they were touching hands before the tranq darts started firing their way. She doesn't remember what happened after she knocked herself out with the M99 accidentally, but she knew that Bruce carried her out and she was sensing a fight. She asked for details on what happened after she passed out.

"Once you passed out, Hulk picked you and Rick up and took you guys out while fighting a robot that was designed to take down Hulk," Bruce answered, remembering from the vivid flashes he saw and from what Hulk told him. "If that robot saw me holding you in my arms in my Hulk form, then the people watching are fully aware that you were with Hulk and you could be a target."

"So…" she hesitated to ask, "What does that mean for me? If I'm a target, then we need to come up with a plan before we get to Egypt."

Bruce's stance suddenly stiffened as he turned to her with a few things to say, "You are not coming with me, Kate. The best thing for you to do right now would be to get as far away as possible from me. Change your name, dig to China if you have to."

She tilted her head similar to the Hulk did and put a hand on her chest in mock hurt. "You think I'm incapable of defending myself around you? That is rude of you. You think just because you get more rips in your jeans than distressed jeans, you are the only one who can take care of himself? Don't you remember the conversation we had in our room; we're both targets and we are better sticking with one another and if these guys are smart, then they could track me down in a heartbeat. You think your biggest and the toughest just because you're the 'hulk'?"

"It's not about being the toughest or the strongest, it's about being smart. These people that are after me, their intelligence is off the charts and I can barely predict their moves let alone their motives. They want me to transform into the Hulk because they want my power.

_Hulk can beat them in a battle._

"Not now, Hulk," he dismissed to the voice in his head. "This is way too dangerous. You can't leave because they could use you to get to me but you always can't stay because you'll be put in their crosshairs for sure." He looked back out at sea to try and think of other options. "You could fake your death and give yourself a new name. My real name isn't even Bannister."

She shook her head, "You are a green creature who can-" They are interrupted by a couple walking out from the hallway door and across the deck to somewhere else. They stayed silent and were about to continue talking until three more couples come out their way. One of them even stepped beside Bruce and Kate just to take a drag from his cigar. Kate says in a hushed voice, "And I thought rock concerts were crowded."

"Let's go somewhere private." He turns to the hallway door and calls out to Ricky by patting his knee and whistling. "Come here, boy." Ricky meets up with them and they walk to the deck above them and position themselves in front of the railing again. "Listen, Kate, honest to God, you would be better off with me absent from your life. Just get a new name and fake your death."

"Hell no," she still refused, "I will not be running away; I am not some damsel in distress. You and I were forced into this together and we can find our way out together." The way she said 'together' made Bruce's eyes widen a little in confusion over what she could've meant by together. He was sensing that there was some kind of deeper meaning behind that word.

"Even if I did let you tag along with me, what could you do? These people are hunting me down and you are a target."

"I'll pitch in," she insists.

"Please explain why you want to do this? Why not just get the hell out of dodge while you still can? I'm used to this and I've survived ever since."

"But," she began, "Your days are numbered. Even if there is a slim chance of you surviving, you won't be able to survive for long. I want to help you since I'm a target, you're the only person that I trust. I've always been running away from a problem when I could've solved it and now I get a chance to make up for it."

"By putting your own life in danger? Kate, this is not a problem worth solving. You can't do anything at all."

"I have connections from Madagascar to England. I want to help, no matter what. You have to understand than I do not take 'no' for an answer and I am quite persistent. I'm probably more persistent than that one reporter who trailed you for a whole year."

Bruce knew right away whom she was referring to: "Jack McGee?"

"Who else?" she says with a hint of sarcasm. "Look, even If I'm pretty much helpless, the least I can do is buy you time to escape. I've been through hell once when my boyfriend went sociopathic on me and tried to kill me. I'm not leaving, either way, I'm staying to help you out. Whether it's just to get another boat ride to Russia or a job at a pizza place or whatever, I'll help. I am not walking away, not until I felt like I've done more than enough to help you."

_Goddamn_, Bruce cursed in his mind after taking in all of her banterings, She is probably the most resilient girl I have ever met. He considers his options, he never really had a plan for when the cruise ship got to Egypt. It was a desert that he could stay in for a few days before moving on. He didn't have any medical equipment with him so he would have to improvise. This whole thing was improvisation and even agreeing to let Kate take her chances with him would be an improv but would for sure put her in the crosshairs of his enemies. _Maybe I could sneak away when she's asleep? Though he was not the kind of guy to ditch when a girl is sleeping. Looks like I'm stuck with Kate but I'm going to have to figure out a game plan with her._ He turns to Kate and sighs in annoyance at her, "You got me. But if you are going to stick with me, you have to do what I say when I say and you can never look over your shoulders because if you do, you'll get attacked from the front. Got it?"

"Got it," Kate nodded, "What are we going to do."

Bruce answers her by shrugging, "I have no idea. I planned to stay in Madagascar a little longer but when I figured out that the people tracking me were already on my tail, I packed up and left. Every step I take is improvised on the spot and nothing has been planned so far. I don't even have a plan for when we get to Egypt. I have no friends or contacts there or anything. The only thing I do when I flee to another country is trying to survive as long as possible without being captured. I've never stayed in one spot for no longer than a month."

"Maybe it's time to stop running," Kate says. "You will never find peace as long as these people chasing you are out there. Instead of running from the problem, why don't you try and solve it?" She was smirking mischievously, remembering what she said earlier about running from the problem rather than solving. He asked her what she meant and she explained. "If you turn into a muscular green thing when you get mad, why not just use it against the people chasing you?"

"Because they want me to turn into the Hulk because they want my powers."

"But instead of running from them, why not find out where their main base of operations is and catch them off guard from there?" He shook his head again but did not say anything else from that. She was waiting for some kind of response before she decided to say what she thought, "You're not afraid of these guys or getting caught, you're afraid of what the Hulk could do. I can see it in your eyes. You're running away from the fight because you know that you're going to win."

She closed his eyes and shook his head, not bothering to say anything for a few seconds before he finally spoke up, "When you can do the things that I can do and you do, then people pay the price. People you care about. I've always been running from the fight because I knew the aftermath of Hulk's damage would come back to bite me in the ass and it did when these same guys chasing after me dropped a bomb that killed my girlfriend and her father."

"You're still grieving."

"I miss Betty but I never have time to grieve. These people, they've been so annoying as hell chasing after me that I just want Hulk to break out and take them all out. I never want people to get hurt, even my enemies."

_Hulk will hurt them for you._

"Quiet,' he hissed softly. "Even if I was to chase after them, I know nothing about them. It's way too risky to go after them blind firing."

"Then let them come to you. If you can take out a robot designed to kill you, then you can take out more of them. Instead of running, let them run to you. They'll send in more robots; guys these smart have to have multiple robots."

"What you're saying is I should let myself become the Hulk just so I can get the attention of killer robots and then offline every single one of them?

"Exactly."

Hearing that plan, it helped Bruce come up with an idea and he explained it to her in perfect detail. If he could expose himself, then agents and robots would be after him. Once he transforms into Hulk in a controlled environment isolated from innocent people (like a sand desert), then he could take out both the agents and the robots and once all the robots were taken down, he could grab whatever piece of evidence he could find on either the agents or the robots and uses that information to figure out who these guys are chasing after him, what their motive is for chasing after them, and he could destroy their base of operations. After that, he puts whoever these guys are in custody and he can take a break from looking over his shoulder.

"Sounds like a plan but I could've thought of it myself," she playfully hits Bruce in the shoulder. "But we can work with that. It should take us like a week or so to get to Egypt, right?"

"No less than a week," he confirmed. "We can't make it obvious that I want to get caught, we're going to have to do something that looked like I finally slipped." He thought of suggestions that could work, "We could say you leaked information that Bruce 'Bannister' is the Incredible Hulk."

"How is that going to work?"

"You're doing a broadcast on your phone and my face just 'sneaks' into the background. My enemies will most likely think that I was caught unaware and they would send robots to me. But since we don't want any innocent people harmed, we might have to set up a faux background."

She smirked at that idea before saying, "No problem to that; I'm a painter and I have been praised for the realistic paintings that I draw. If I had a really big aisle or a wall to paint on, I can easily make a background of a store."

"But they could track down your location and discover that we're in the desert. We're going to have to do something before they look up the phone's coordinates on Google Maps." He licked his lips and pushed his back to the railing, his elbows resting on the bars as he puffs out a breath of air in thinking effort. "We could build the overhead of a gas station in the middle of the desert somewhere near a road. We will have to build the entire exterior to look like a gas station to a T. If they use the 3D option, they could probably look at the gas station from a ground level. It will take a lot of hard work but I'm sure we can build it."

"So once we lure the robots and agents to our location, and you start showing those robots that I, Robot is a fictional movie, what am I going to be doing during all of this?"

"You-"

"And don't you dare say I will be buying a plane ticket to Amsterdam." The venom in her voice was enough to make Bruce wince in discomfort and he scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"We'll find a job for you to do, I promise."

"Good," Kate smiled like all her problems were gone. "I can't wait to see Hulk kicking some robot ass. It's going to be awesome."

Bruce stopped her from cheering and put a hand on her shoulder to indicate for her to take a breath, "This is not some movie or video game where once you die you start from the last checkpoint or you get to rewind to before the main character dies. This is real life and if you die, you die. The reason I never want people around is that when they are around, they die. Just promise me you'll make this a little more seriously."

"Alright, alright, I promise to lower my cool. I've just never been on this sort of adventure before."

"And once this whole thing is done, we never speak of it ever again. We will just depart our ways."

She surprised him when she asked, "Can I come with you?"

He looked at her in surprise, "What? Even after getting these guys off my back, why would you still want to come with me?"

"I want to join you in this life," she said the line with as much nonchalance as a rock and he deduced that it had something to do with the way she said 'together' earlier in their conversation. "The life that I run is so boring and so dull. With you, I get a rush of excitement."

"Kate, it would break my heart if you get harmed because of me. My life is an emotional rollercoaster. What do we do once we do defeat these guys? We live together, get married, die? We barely know each other!"

"You never suggested having children?"

That comment stabbed him in the heart, "I can't have children. I physically can't have any children. If you want a family, go find someone else and start with them, we barely met, we barely know each other. And I don't know what you're feeling is even love, just a crush."

Now it was Kate's turn to be _crushed_. Sure, she may have had a head over heels crush on Bruce but it was still a crush at the end of the day. The fact that he told her that they can never be one just stung her. She didn't care about helping Bruce out, she just wanted to spend as much time with him as possible and now it looks like no matter what, he was going to continuously pusher her away until he was nothing but a memory in her mind. Just the thought of that made Kate's heart drop to her stomach and she clenched her jaw and pursed her lips tightly together before she looks off to the side and squeezes her eyelids shut. "Well, then I should start working on my store background before we get to Egypt." Her voice cracked like glass before she walked down the stairs and back into her room, leaving Bruce there burying his face into his palm and having Ricky lick the heels of his shoes.

"Why did I have to be so cynical?" He is wrapped with guilt.


	4. Lithium

Middle of Nowhere, Egypt

Days without incident: Eleven

Bruce and Kate were in the middle of nowhere in the deserts of Egypt and they had rented a jeep and drove it out somewhere in the distance where they planned to set up a fake gas station so they could set up the photo. Bruce was also looking up when the overhead satellites would take pictures and according to Google, there was going to be another overhead picture of Egypt being taken in less than three hours so if Leader was to look up the location on Google Maps, then it would look genuine to him. Bruce truly felt like he could best his enemy at his own game of hiding and seek.

Bruce was moving some tables around the place after he had finished setting up the walls with Kate assisting him. He was doing most of the building while Kate was in town and buying all the material that Bruce told her to buy. He was putting up a wall and Kate was currently painting the background of a wall in a store. She took a picture of the interior of a nearby Walgreens and duplicated what she saw on the phone on the paper beneath her.

"How's it going over there?" asked Bruce as he pushed a shelf into the middle of the homemade store. He put empty cans on the shelf with printed pictures of food brands. He looked down at her artwork and marveled at the beauty of her work. "This should be able to fool anyone. You should have your painting show."

Kate removed a brush placed in between her teeth and spoke, "Thank you; I considered a show but it felt too similar to that one painter guy."

"You mean Bob Ross from _The Joys of Painting_?"

"That's the one and I wanted to steer away from that. But thanks for the compliment." She looks at all the work he has put in just to make the interior of the store look genuine. "You did a pretty good job too, I would be fooled if I didn't know you."

"Thank you and let's hope that this fools our chasers." He runs outside to pull out several mannequins and drag them into the store where he put clothing on them and set them up at various points around the store with their heads looking down. "We need this to look real." He leaves two mannequins out and puts the other three back in the trunk, deciding that it was unnecessary to have more than two mannequins because they were in the desert. Also, the day before, he had set up two small cars outside along with boxes that Kate painted to look like gas pumps. So far, everything was working out perfectly. "Okay, that should be everything. We just need you to finish painting the wall and then we should be golden. We need to do this after the satellite shoots an overhead picture, we still have two and a half hours to spare.

After two hours had passed and everything seemed to be in order, Bruce checked Google Maps for their current location to see that their homemade gas station was taken on the overhead satellite. Bruce then told Kate to get ready with her social media account and take a picture of the store with Bruce hidden in the background. She stands at the front door and takes the picture with the mannequins having their faces turned away and Bruce in a hoodie behind a shelf. Once she took the picture, she uploaded it to Instagram and she high fived Bruce above the head. "I took the picture and it's on the web."

"That's good news," Bruce praised, "Now all we have to do is wait. Pretty soon, in as little as forty-eight hours, this place will be swarming with robots and mercenaries. You need to get to safety."

"Fat chance," she rebukes at him, "I'm going to help."

"Kate, there is no possible way you can help me in the situation that I'm currently in. The only thing you can do is go back to the motel and have my equipment ready. And to feed Ricky before he loses his temper. But either way, you will not be anywhere near this place when those soldiers and robots come after me. I can't risk your death on my conscience."

"Oh please." She was offended. "Do not use 'your bloody corpse on my good conscience' because that is bullshit of an excuse." She was going to retort at him even further before she inwardly agreed to appease him in his wishes. "If that is what you want, I will go back to the motel and I will stay out of sight from these guys. Just don't ever use my dead body as an excuse ever again."

"Sometimes, that may be the only excuse that I'll ever get." He looks out the door to see if any cars were coming this way considering that they just built up a faux gas station and Kate had to get out of there as quickly as possible. "Do not establish any kind of contact with me for at least ninety hours. Don't come to me, I will come to you. If nothing happens and no mercenaries or robots show up, then we move on and find another way to get their attention. If these people captured your face on the footage, then they'll look into you. If you hear knocking on the door of your motel, do not open it and make sure that you have contingencies planned out."

"The way you say it makes you sound paranoid but I guess since you are being hunted by people who want to use your power for whatever reason, then you have every right to be paranoid." She climbs into her vehicle and turns on the engine. "Don't worry about me, Bruce, we'll both come out of this in one piece."

She drove off the car and left Bruce at the gas station.

* * *

London, England

The Leader was designing several more robots would a couple of his mercenaries in sunglasses. He called out for one of his bigger and more muscular mercenaries, Thrasher, to help him load up a minigun onto the robot's shoulder. Once Thrasher finished his task, he ordered his orderlies to pick up the pace and that time is of the essence all while bantering on how difficult it is to get parts like these.

One of the mercenaries named Nelson was arguing with Leader about how difficult he was being as he was putting a buzzsaw onto a robot's fist. "You are being very difficult right now."

"Time is of the essence," Leader shouted like a spoiled brat. "We need to have robots as Johnny-on-the-spots. Banner could re-up as Hulk anywhere on the planet and we need to be vigilant about it. He knows we're after him know so we'll need to enhance global surveillance."

"Oh yeah, maybe we should build satellites out of gamma and use that to detect him."

"Ahh shut up, Nelson!" Leader grunted in annoyance as he paced back and forth the lab, the other mercenaries snickering at the bantering between Leader and Nelson. "Hate to say it, but you guys are ironically redundant at this point."

Nelson got up to his knees and turned to face Leader with a face of anger, "Oh yeah, in case you forgot, we used to be worldwide mercenaries. We made thirty million dollars from our illegal activities. You should be lucky that Grant even put us up on the dark web. No mercenaries on the dark web, no money to fund your robot building."

"Ah bust it up!" Leader shouted to silence. "We've already spent two million and nine hundred thousand dollars on global surveillance and seventeen million and eight hundred and fifty thousand on robot parts. You guys are the worst mercenaries in the world, I should go back to working alone. Gargoyle may be incompetent but at least he gets the job done whenever I tell him."

"Yeah, while you two bigheads sit back here in this cozy little lab, me and my boys are out there, laying our asses down on the line. I doubt you've ever shot a gun before!"

"I prefer beings brains rather than brawns and pick up the paste once you get back to work or I'm seriously going to be testing out those gamma guns on one of you."

Nelson obeyed his leader and gets back to working on building more robots. He looked through the instructions clearly and just as he used a knife to sharpen a few blades on the saw, someone nudged him in the elbow and he heard someone whisper in his ear, "Let's hope he doesn't hit his big brain on the way out." Nelson and the other mercenaries broke out in hysterical laughter.

"That was a good one, Reyes, let's hope his head doesn't explode because his ego is swelling up like a balloon."

Leader heard his henchman mocking him but he could give two shits what they thought of them. He was not having a good day and he was hoping that Gargoyle would return with some good news. He accurately predicted that Gargoyle comes charging through that door and running towards him like a midget elf and just the thought of Gargoyle running made Leader laugh. Gargoyle was out of breath by the time he reached Leader. He stopped just a meter or two in front of Leader and hunched over with his hands pushing against his knees and huffing and puffing like he ran a marathon. Leader decided to bestow mercy on him by patting him on the back. And when Gargoyle finally stood up, he waited patiently for Gargoyle to tell what he had to say.

"What is it?!"

"I've...come back with some good news, my Leader," Gargoyle huffs before catching his breath once again.

Leader gestured for him to go on, deciding that his act of mercy was now over, "Well, spill your guts before I spill them for you."

"Banner has been spotted in Egypt, at a gas station. I have proof." Gargoyle starts walking back before Leader grabs him by the shoulder and forced him to turn his body to him. "What is it, Leader?"

"He was just spotted like that?" He shoved Gargoyle to the side before walking to the rec room himself. There was a soldier operating the computer in front of all the television screens of cameras they hacked into. Everything that was happening on the screen was happening live. He shoved the camera operator out of the chair before he switched all screens to all the cameras in Egypt.

Gargoyle came back into the room and explained that someone posted an image inside a gas station and Banner was caught in the background. "What are you talking about? When has that ever happened?" Leader asked Gargoyle like he was stupid. "Banner is smart enough to know not to go into public places. Why is he even in a gas station in the first place." He orders for Gargoyle to pull up the picture on the screen, which he did and he saw a picture of the inside of a gas station and Banner behind a shelf. He was angry that Banner had got caught for some reason, most likely because he wanted to be the one to find Banner personally and not indirectly through someone else's phone. "Something doesn't feel right. Pull up the image on Google Maps." Gargoyle obeys and Leader finds a picture of a gas station in the middle of the desert adjacent to a road. Just from looking at that picture made him feel like something was wrong and having an IQ of 1005, he knew that there was definitely something wrong. "Pull up 3D imaging." He viewed the gas station from the 3D angle and nothing seemed off (to people who weren't looking for something specific).

"None of this makes sense," Leader once again doubted. "There is something wrong."

"Yeah," Gargoyle nodded, "Banner messed up."

"Banner never messes up!" he snapped violently at Gargoyle, almost punching him across the jaw. "There must be something, some kind of clue."

"Clue to what?" Gargoyle shrugged, "What the hell are you even looking for, Leader?"

"It is a setup," he answered. "There is no way in hell Banner would be this ignorant. He must be planning something and I'm going to figure it out." He turned to the technician he threw out of his chair and snapped off, "Cross-reference when the post was uploaded and compared to the timeline of when this photo on Google Maps was taken."

"If you say so," the tech complied nonchalantly. The post was uploaded about an hour or so after the image on Google Maps was updated. "The last time the map was updated was three weeks ago."

"Was there any gas station before?"

He searches through multiple previous photos and finds nothing but an image of an empty desert overhead. "Nothing."

"It does not take three weeks to build a gas station, it takes at least four weeks." That's when Leader's eyes widened in realization and a smirk slowly formed across his mouth. "Bruce Banner is setting us up. He wants us to find him. He wants a challenge!"

Gargoyle put his hand on Leader's arm and shook it to grab his attention, "My Leader, you have obviously not been sleeping very well. By my calculations, you get only three hours of sleep a night."

Leader snatched his arm back before shouting out, "Bruce Banner wants a challenge! He set up a fake gas station on purpose so we could be drawn to his crosshairs. He hulked out for the first time in a year and now he thinks he's so big and bad. I'd like to see him put up against my intelligence. If he wants a fight, then we'll give him a fight." He turns back to the tech. "Alert all men that Banner is asking for it. I need all weapons hot and tranq darts ready. And for god's sake, tell them to have thirty robots ready or I will lose my freaking mind!"

"Yes, sir." The tech turned back to the computers and typed in an alert on the screen before sending it out to all of the mercenaries present at the lab. He turns back to Leader and tells him that he is done.

"Also, I want the name of the person who took the post and I need eyes on them as well," Gargoyle questioned why. "Because I think the person who took the photo is Kate Waynesboro. In case you've forgotten, you little gremlin, she was the only scientist of the American group in Madagascar who was not reported KIA by our robots. And plus, the android came back with Kate's face on camera and according to the footage, Hulk carried her to safety. She is Banner's accomplice and she is just as valuable as a target as Banner is. I have another idea as well."

* * *

Kate was sitting down on her bed at the motel, watching TV that had been dubbed in the Arabic language. It was so hard to watch an episode of _Dr. Phil_ when you can barely hear the words they are saying. The only thing she actually knew what to say in Arabic was 'thank you' and she could barely get that right. She wonders how Bruce is adept at learning any language. She switched channels before getting up to go to the bathroom. When she came back, the door was left wide open. She froze in her place and locked herself inside the bathroom.

"Oh shit," she whispered very quietly to herself, "This is so not good. I gotta call Bruce." She took out her phone to dial before remembering that she was told not to make any phone calls cause these guys can easily tap her phone. She put the phone behind the toilet before climbing into the shower and closing the curtains.

_Maybe it's nothing. Maybe the housekeeper forgot to close the door._

She squeezed her eyes shut, about to weep in fear before she heard a soft, but audible footsteps outside the bathroom door. Her heart stopped beating, the world stood still for the longest second, Kate's face froze in a shocked expression. She covers her mouth, "Oh dear god." The sound of the door creaking is barely audible but she picked it up with her heightened senses. "They're here...Bruce...please…"

Then she suddenly remembered, _Wait, the taser. Where the hell is the taser?_ She put it on the bedside lamp and didn't think to bring it in the bathroom with her. When she realized this, her fists clenched in anger over her stupidity. "How could I forget that freaking taser?"

The door is unlocked from the outside, the unlocking noise deafening Kate and every creak from the door sending chills down her spine. When the bathroom door opened, it creaked loudly, but when it was closed, it creaked softer. Then somebody locked it again from the inside as a way to insure nobody escapes.

She looked around for whatever resources were available and grabbed a bottle of shampoo and poured some into her hand and rubbed it. Her attacker couldn't attack what he couldn't see.

A shadowy figure appears behind the curtains and hands touch the fabric before ripping it from the rod. Kate attacked and jammed her hands into his eyes, burning them with the shampoo. The intruder yells in pain before she shoves him back and unlocks the bathroom door to run out and grab the taser. She returned to the bathroom and tased the intruder in the neck and paralyzed him on the floor. She reached down and took the tranquilizer before she tranqs him unconscious. "How does that feel?" She hears another noise at the door and runs outside and shoots the first person to enter the room, knocking him out with the tranquilizer. "It feels so good to be dropping men like flies."

One of the mercenaries charged into the room and lunged for her. She fired a tranq into his thigh and he fell to the ground but another mercenary took his place a split second later. It was a girl mercenary that was six feet tall (although that could've been to the heels she was wearing). She grabs Kate by the head and backhands her. She snatches the tranq and throws it away. She then takes Kate by the hair and drags her out of the motel room with little to no effort. Kate failed to break free so she grabbed a tranq pistol off of one of the unconscious mercenaries. The female mercenary spotted her and kicked her in the hand before picking her up by the waist, hauling her off of her feet, and throwing Kate over the railing outside and Kate fell two floors down in the back of a pickup truck.

"What that hell was that?" The pickup truck started right after the girl mercenary jumped in right in front of her. The girl mercenary grabbed Kate by the throat and started strangling her into unconsciousness. Kate fought back. She punched the female attack in the face but she was phased little to none. Her only response was headbutting Kate.

Kate reached for some kind of weapon on her female attacker and found a switchblade. She pulled it out of the holster but the blade was stuck in place. She just whacked the female mercenary in the temple with the hilt as an alternative. She then shoved her back and she fell out of the moving vehicle. The driver picked up on this and stopped the car, causing Kate's back to hit the back window from flying forward.

The driver exits the vehicle and runs for Kate, grabbing her like an abusive partner would by the wrists and he threw her to the ground. He stood over her and watched her fidget with something in her hand. She freed the knife from the jammed switchblade and stabbed the driver in the calf. He yelled in pain before falling to the ground. She jumped to her feet and kicked him in the face before climbing in the truck and driving off.

The female mercenary was not done with her because she caught up to the pickup truck on foot and climbed in before it could reach its full speed. The wounded driver tried crawling after the speeding vehicle but it was already out of range.

The female mercenary punched a fist through the back window and broke the surrounding glass to crawl inside. Kate saw the threat coming in from behind and stomped on the brakes abruptly. The female mercenary flew forward and cut her side with the broken glass before she pulled herself free and jumped out of the back to meet Kate who also exited the vehicle.

It was now a standoff between the two girls. Kate had her switchblade while the female mercenary had her fists. She was making it pretty clear to Kate that no knife was going to scare her.

"Let's do this, you coward," Kate goaded. The attack came three seconds faster than she was expecting. The girl mercenary threw a punch that clipped Kate in the jaw and Kate retaliated by slashing the female mercenary across the forearm. The two then grabbed each other by the hair and wrestled over the knife. Kate could practically feel the rage coming off of the female mercenary by the way she was grabbing her and how much force she was using to grab her by the hair with the intent of ripping it from her scalp like paper. Kate winced in pain from the handful of hair that was threatening to be torn off her scalp and she hits her rival with whatever she could throw at her.

The female mercenary shoved Kate off of her. Kate stopped herself from falling backward before she drew her knife and held it in a threatening manner. The female mercenary whacks the knife out of Kate's hand and catches Kate's punch before sealing the deal by trapping Kate in a headlock. The female mercenary spoke up once she felt Kate's pulse slow down a few beats and said, "You pathetic freak."

Kate almost blacked out until she was saved at the very last second. The tight grip around her throat suddenly disappeared and she fell down to her knees and clutched her sore throat. "Oh my god," she wheezes, "What was that?"

Bruce Banner had saved Kate just in the nick of time. He had shoved the female mercenary off Kate and when she attacked, Bruce used his Jujitsu skills on the girl. He grabbed her and flipped her over his hip. "Get in the truck, now!" The nearly unconscious girl heard a man's voice shouting at her and she climbed into the truck, albeit at a slow pace because so as to not exhaust herself. Bruce was keeping the girls busy by using his martial arts skills on her but he was not punching her, only taking her down. Kate climbed into the passenger seat after being told and Bruce caught the girl mercenary's fist before flipping her onto the ground away from the truck and shoving her as far as he could off to the side of the road. He charges and climbs into the driver's seat and hammers his foot onto the gas without even closing the door. The girl mercenary tried to climb into the back once more but she could not catch up to a pickup truck at forty miles per hour on foot and she yelled in anger.

"What's going on, Kate?" Bruce asked as he finally shut the driver's door. She spotted the bruises on her neck and gave her a few more minutes to breathe before he repeated his question.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were at the gas station." Kate's voice was hollow as she spoke.

"I was," he explained, "but something didn't feel right. I went back to check on you and that's when I saw you choking." He looks at her with signs of regret in his face before he turns away to look at the road in front of him. "I'm really sorry about what happened."

Gargoyle, who had been hiding in the back this entire time and was covered in glass from when the mercenary punched through the window, sat up, and stabbed both Bruce and Kate with the two syringes in his hands. Kate was knocked out instantly but Bruce's body stiffened from the pain and when he looked at the glowing green eyes in the rearview mirror.


	5. Boron

Gargoyle took his chances and bailed out of the moving vehicle. Meanwhile, Bruce's foot involuntarily smashed the gas pedal to the ground and the truck veered off to the side of the road before the front right tire blew up and the car went flying dangerously across the desert field, landing on its side with Banner thrown out of the truck. He landed on his stomach and when he removed his face from being buried in the sand, his face turned green and he growled as he looked over at the pickup truck.

About a dozen black SUVs came rolling up to where the crash had taken place and dozens of mercenaries stepped out with their guns drawn. Even though they knew it was useless, they were armed with live ammunition. About a dozen robots flew down from the sky and landed right in front of the army of mercenaries.

Bruce's got up to his knees and smashed his fist to the ground again. He places one foot down on the ground as he jerks his body up and looks at the sleeves on his shirt starting to rip. He stands up all the way, now ten feet tall and raises both muscled hands high above his head like he was about to smash the ground and he grunted with a burst of energy as the remains of his shirt tore away.

Hulk turns back to the large crowd of mercenaries and robots and growls at them. He takes a step forward but none of the mercenaries or robots back off. He was about to smash them all to pieces until he noticed the pickup truck laying on its side and Kate was still in there and because she was drugged with the M99, she was unconscious. Hulk looked back at the group of enemies and one of the robots zoomed into Hulk's chest and tackled him to the ground. More robots began piling up on Hulk and pinned him down and started beating and cutting him. The mercenaries rushed over to the pickup truck while several stayed behind to watch the fight between the Hulk and the robots. Two of the mercenaries crawled inside to retrieve Kate but they pulled themselves out when they heard a ruckus coming over from where the fight was. They looked out to see Hulk kicking and swatting the robots away and he jumped to his feet and destroys one of the twelve robots with a single blow to the chest.

The mercenaries helped out their robots by shooting at Hulk with heavy machine guns. The only thing this was causing the Hulk was an annoyance. Hulk picked up one of the robots he swatted away and threw it at the crowd of mercenaries. Most of them moved out of the way in time but some were hit by the robot and hurt badly. The robot was left unharmed and just jumped back into the fight.

The Gargoyle caught up to the mess and he was shocked to see Hulk taking out both his mercenaries and robots. It was just as Leader predicted.

Hulk picked up one soldier and threw him off to the side just to shut his gunfire up but he still had dozens of mercenaries to deal with and these robots were ganging upon him. If he remembered correctly, he had to rip out the robot's core in the chest area. These robots were prepared this time because their armor was taking two to three hits to pierce through. Nevertheless, Hulk continued to fight.

"Get the girl!" Gargoyle commands to a group of mercenaries. Three mercenaries assist the two that were already in the car and they climb in to pull Kate out. Hulk saw this act and shoved the robot on him away and moved over to the pickup truck. He swatted the mercenaries away like flies before he flips the car onto its wheels before ripping the passenger door out and pulling out Kate.

He takes Kate in his arms, cradling her once again before he leaps into the air. He jumps three to four miles away from the fight but the robots chased after him with their thrusters. The mercenaries that were left behind were groaning in pain, each one yelling at their frustration. Even Gargoyle yelled at the sky in frustration.

Hulk soared through the air, leaping from one spot to another spot three or four miles away. The robots continued to pursue him and he decided to have some fun with them as soon as he found a safe place for Kate to rest up. He came to an abrupt stop near a small village that was a ghost town. He quickly hid Kate in a shed and closed the door. He knew it would be hot for her but once he dealt with the nine robots after him, then he would get her out of there.

Hulk ripped out a huge chunk of debris from a wall as the robots landed in front of him. He threw it like a softball at them and they all got out of the way in time, only for Hulk to lunge for them afterward. Hulk grabbed one robot floating in the air by its feet and swung it into the ground like a golf club before batting the other robots away. He then punched a hole in the robot's chest and yanked out the chords, disabling this robot and leaving only eight left. Hulk claps his hands together and sends a wave of thunder at them and launches a few of them on their backs. He picks up that chunk of debris once more and smashes it down into the robot in the middle. He weakened its armor and made it easier to rip out its cords, leaving him with only seven robots to deal with.

Back at the crash site, the mercenaries were gathering whatever evidence they could find while Gargoyle called in the Leader. Unexpectedly, the Leader was not his usual angry self and seem rather enthused that Hulk transformed. When Gargoyle asked what Leader's plan was, all he could hear was a chuckle on the other end of the communicator.

Back at the fighting zone, Hulk had dealt with all but three robots and he was roughing them up but they were repairing at a faster rate than usual. It was even harder to punch a hole into a robot's chest. The Leader had installed some kind of programming where when a collected group of robots comes together, they share the same level of gamma radiation and when the robots go down, the gamma radiation would be absorbed into whatever robot was still standing. They were pushing Hulk to his limit and as the adage goes, 'the madder he gets, the stronger he gets'.

Two robots grabbed Hulk's arms and yanked them in opposite directions while the other robot punched Hulk in the stomach with its buzzsaw. Hulk roared in anger and pain and jumped to kick the robot away with both feet. He struggled to lift his hands even a few feet because the robots holding his hands down were using the thrusters in their arms to assist them. Hulk quickly headbutted the robot on his left hand but the kinetic energy just bounced off the metal and went right back to Hulk's head. He was slightly disoriented but shrugged it off.

The free robot slashed Hulk across the throat but the wounds healed up quickly. This still pissed Hulk off to a larger degree.

He combated against the three robots once and for all. He finally freed his hands from the robots' grips and struck both of them in the stomach and headbutted them into each other. He threw them to opposite sides before he punched a hole in the robot in front of him and tore out all of the wires. The robot was still standing there but spasming like a wounded human. When he hesitated to go down, Hulk pushed him down.

The other two robots quickly absorbed the gamma radiation from their recently deceased combatant and continued to attack the Hulk. The green monster turned around and punched the head off of the one that held his left arm down and tossed him to the side. The other one, he grabbed its swinging hammer arm and twisted it until it ripped from the wrist. The thrusters in the wrist activated and tried to reconnect with the arm but Hulk put the hand up to his mouth and tore out the wires with his teeth. He did the same thing to the buzzsaw hand when the robot threw that hand at him. Except once he bit the wires out, he just used the saw blade against the robot and shoved it down its robot throat. Hulk has had enough with this robot and turned off its lights by punching it up the stomach and ripping the wires. With his hand still in the robot's stomach, he lifted the robot like it was weightless and threw it as far as he could across the sky before it disappeared into the blue.

That left only one robot left.

The decapitated robot had reattached his head but two seconds after, Hulk ripped it off again and crushed it into irreparable pieces. The decapitated robot still went for the Hulk and was using sonar from within to navigate.

Hulk was smirking at the headless robot before he finally decided to end that robot's miserable life. He grabbed the robot by the chest and kept it at bay as he reached down the robot's throat and pulled the wires out. The robot stuttered and spasmed and would've fallen over had it not been for Hulk keeping a tight grip on its chest. Hulk picks it up with its arm still down its throat and sends it flying into the sky like the other robot. Once it disappeared, he picked up the other robot bodies and threw them as far as he could. He was throwing them dozens of miles away. He wouldn't be surprised if Gargoyle and his mercenaries chasing after him wouldn't be hit by the incoming robots. He left all but one robot and one robot that he didn't throw away sustained the least damage in the fight, nothing but it is metal back having a hole and the wires torn out.

Now that the threat was over once again, Hulk turned back to the shed where he stored Kate. He opens up the door and sees that she's been sweating bullets. He takes her out of the shed gently and carried her away with his left hand while using his right hand to drag the robot, leaving a trail in the sand behind but the wind was starting to pick up and cover his tracks like a broom to footprints. He was constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure that there was nobody on his tale and just started walking out of the ghost town and into the heated desert.

* * *

Back with Gargoyle and his mercenaries

They were cleaning up what remained of the wreckage and Gargoyle was speaking for Leader on the communicator, saying whatever Leader said and said it to the troops aloud. He tried to do his best Leader impression to show how pissed off Leader was at the failure of the plan, not the mercenaries part of the plan. They laughed at Gargoyle's awful impression of Leader.

Gargoyle was about to say something else until a robot from the sky came crashing down beside him and almost crushed him. He jumps into the air with a yelp before looking up into the sky to see several more robots being thrown from a distance come flying down from the sky. The mercenaries and Gargoyle move out of the way and several of the SUVs that the mercenaries came in were crushed underneath the deactivated robots. Once it stopped raining robots, Gargoyle told his troops to get up so he can do a performance review on each of them. They stood in a straight line and watched the dwarfed gargoyle stalk each of them.

"Now, what kind of group is this?" he questions rhetorically, "I'm not surprised actually. Something like this was bound to happen; Leader did say there was a seventy-five percent chance that we would fail and look where that ended up for us. We're standing in the middle of the desert with robots raining down on us. I don't know why Leader isn't mad but I am. I want to be cured and Banner is the only person who can cure me."

He turned to the female mercenaries who caught up to them and was having the wounded driver leaned on her with his hand around her shoulders. "I expected more from you two, Gradys." The Male Grady sneered at Gargoyle before pain caused him to gasp in agony. Female Grady put her uncle down to help him with his injury. Gargoyle let them be before moving onto Nelson. "You…" the pause in his sentence sent chills down the arrogant mercenary's spine before his next sentence calmed him down. "You did alright. You are the only one worth a damn aside from the Gradys." He turned to the rest of the group and said, "As for the rest of you. I do expect better and next time better be better. We paid good money for you mercenaries and I want to get my money's worth out of your mercenaries. By the way, what happened to that dog at the motel?"

"Blonsky shot it with a tranq and we want to earn our money's worth," Nelson said, almost snapping at Gargoyle. "Boys, girls, let's try and pick up the paste and be successful next time. Think of Hulk as your life-long dream of retirement for life. If we bring him into Leader and Gargoyle, then we all get to retire until Death calls for us in our deathbeds."

"Yes sir," the mercenaries said in unison.

"What?" Gargoyle asked dumbfounded. "How can they answer you with respect when they look down at me like I'm a dwarf?"

Nelson and the one soldier he was talking to in the lab earlier were looking at each other awkwardly with a look that said, 'Really? Like, really'. Nelson pointed out the obvious, saying, "But you are a dwarf."

"Shut up," Gargoyle finally snapped at Nelson. "You think you're so smart and you have all the answers when you have nothing. You are incompetent and arrogant. You think just because you have a big head that you're the smartest man in the world."

The mercenaries each stood there with awkward looks and cringe faces on because Nelson was legit talked to as if he was Leader. It seemed like Gargoyle was finally taking out his anger and taking it out on Nelson as a replacement for Leader because saying this to Leader was like having the guts the pour hydrochloric acid on your skin.

"Are you okay, boss?" one of the mercenaries asked with concern, "You seem like you're a little off."

"I am fine, Harper." He turns his back to the mercenaries and grumbles as he buries his face into his left hand. Without turning his back, he says, "I'm sorry for snapping at you guys. It's just, I hate Leader and I miss my son. I want to be next to him but I can't because of my condition. The Leader promised that if Banner was captured alive, then Banner would remain alive to cure me. So far, the Leader is making me mad over his rants while Banner is making me mad just because he gets mad. Nevertheless, let's get to it."

* * *

Hulk found a cave that was filled with the shade that he took Kate and the dead robot. He gently set her against the wall and put the lifeless robot deep into the cave. He watched the unconscious Kate as she slowly regained consciousness. He had been walking in the heat of the desert for the better part of three hours so the M99 should start to wear off in one more hour. He decided to sit down next to her to pass time. But as soon as the seat of his ripped jeans touched the rocky ground, he suddenly remembered.

_Ricky, we left him at the motel. Hulk, we should go back to get him._

"Hulk doesn't understand," the green monster said in his deep voice, "Hulk doesn't understand doggies."

_We can't leave Ricky behind. Two reasons why: He has our DNA and if those mercenaries find him, they could shave off his hair and take it away to duplicate my DNA. The second reason is I love Ricky too much to leave him behind._

"But doggy can find way back to us."

_NO, he can't. Hulk, big guy, please just listen to me. Let's go back and save Ricky. He's not just a dog, we saved him from being crushed by a garbage truck. We have to take care of him. To a lesser degree then we have to take care of Kate but we still need to take care of him._

"Can it wait?"

_No, these people after me are relentless and will not wait. Please, save Ricky._

"What about Kate? Isn't Banner worried about Kate?"

_Of course, I'm worried about Kate but we should be hidden from any satellites overhead and we will be back before anyone even sees us. Plus, I doubt that the guys with the cars even made it this far. It wouldn't be logically possible because we have a three-hour head start on them and we're twenty-five miles away._

"Okay, fine, fine, fine. Little man wins, Hulk goes save Ricky." Hulk stands back up to his feet and walks out of the cave. He starts running at a pace of three hundred miles per hour before he leaps forward, jumping a few times before leaping into the air and coming down three miles away. Only twenty miles to go. When he leaped back to the gas station, he found Ricky hidden in the corner and he gently took the dog and he leaped back to the cave with him. It took them only four minutes to get to and back. He covered twenty-five miles that long. He puts the whimpering dog in the cave and sets him down right next to the unconscious Kate. Hulk finally sits down and waits for the M99 to wear off before he looks at Kate again. When the M99 does wear off, Hulk notices and stands over her, looking down at her with curiosity.

When Kate awoke, Hulk's curious self was only meters away and she failed to recognize Hulk at first and she demonstrated that by pushing the curious Hulk back.

Hulk's head hit the ceiling made of rock and he was hurt. He winced in pain and clutched the back of his head. He groans in sadness before turning his back and putting his free hand on his hip, sighing in disappointment. If Kate didn't want to be near him, then he was allowed to give her the space that she wanted. He was still hurt, however.

Kate sat up after recognizing the mistake that she made. She moves over to Hulk's side and calls out for him by his human name instead of 'Hulk'. He still responded and came back into the cave, curious as to why Kate suddenly changed from terrified for her life to terrified for his life. "Are you okay, Bruce? I didn't mean to hurt you or anything. I was just startled." She notices his expression soften and his silence indicated to her that she was allowed to continue elaborating. "I was confused at what was happening in front of me and I acted out of instinct. You're not a monster, Bruce. I'm sorry."

"Kate…" Hulk droned as he moved closer to her, reaching for Kate's stretched hand. "Hulk didn't mean to upset Kate."

"Don't worry about it," she reassured as she took his hand. "Let's just, sit down and talk about this."

Hulk nodded and ducked his head down lower to avoid hitting the ceiling made of rocks again. He sat down against the wall and Ricky hops into Hulk's lap. Hulk gently brushes the fragile dog in his lap and allows Kate to rest her head on his arm. He watched the robot with caution and suspicion before he laid his head back down and closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The Leader had arrived in Egypt to meet his cohorts in a single file line. He walked up to each of them, studying each of them hard as two other robots that he brought with him acting as his bodyguards. He looks at the robot wreckage before asking Gargoyle, "These are all the robots?"

"Yes," Gargoyle almost hesitated to answer, "But we are missing one."

Leader's eyes snapped wide open upon realizing what he just heard and he almost knocked Gargoyle upside the head. "What, you're missing a robot, how?!"

"What do you mean how? Hulk was throwing the robots back at us. From the trajectory, I'd say they were flung twelve miles in the air before they finally came to rest here."

"It's not about trajectories and angles, Gargoyle, it's making sure all robots are accounted for. Hulk does not smash and bashes for no reason, he sees it as necessary. If he kept one behind, then we are through, we should cover our tracks."

"What is there to worry about, Leader? It's just one robot, we can make plenty more and what is one robot less going to do to us?"

Leader typed in something on the datapad on his wrist before answering: "That robot is evidence; it's going to tell the right people _who_ we are, _what_ we are, _how_ we are, and _where_ we are."

The Leader clenched his fists and his jaws as a way to suppress the anger that was slowly building up inside of him. "I am trying to obtain the power that belongs to me and everybody is being incompetent about it. If I am exposed to NATO before I steal Banner's alter ego, then they would pull out a gun and shoot me in my big cranium head. After all, nobody wants a bullet in their cranium, right?" The Leader looked one of his robot bodyguards aiming his minigun armed with bullets at the mercenaries and they each cowered in fear for their lives. The second robot aimed a gun at Gargoyle with a laser colored green aiming for between his eyes. "I'm sure you guys understand if something really bad happens to your skulls because of your incompetence. Question is: how are you going to make amends for certain things?"

"Boss," Nelson choked on his courage. "If you allow me, I will find the missing robot for you." When the Leader granted permission, he turned to the tech guy that was cowering behind a tall guy with his laptop in hand, "Gary, we're going to need a level 5 search full resource protocol for this device."

"Copy," the tech guy answer immediately obeyed and pulled up an overhead image of the desert take from a satellite. He traced the robot's last known location to a cave where Hulk dragged it in. The Leader looked at the footage before looking back at Gargoyle.

"If Banner figures out that I am Samuel Sterns, I am a super genius, I work with mercenaries and gamma-irradiated robots, and I operate in London, then the blood that I'm about to spill will be from your throat, Gargoyle."


	6. Promethium

Bruce was back to normal and he was analyzing the robot that he brought with him to the cage. The wires were torn out of its chest so there was no need to fear it coming back to life and killing him. He didn't have any tools with him so he was using his bare hands. Hulk was granting Bruce super strength to rip parts of the lifeless robot off if he needed to and he looked at how the robot was built. He leaves no stone left unturned.

Hulk grants Bruce low-level super strength to flip the robot on its side to check for insignias. The minigun with gamma-irradiated bullets gave him some indication that whoever built this robot is rich with gamma radiation. They must've done testing on themselves with the gamma radiation until they realized that they can't duplicate Hulk's physiology so they moved onto robots to try and extract the real him and reverse engineer his physiology into a super-soldier serum or for whatever reason. "Ricky," he called to the dog, "Whoever built this robot is highly intelligent. These people are adept in the field of gamma radiation as I am. They know that gamma could also be my weakness." He pulls out a bullet from the minigun. "The bullets were 7.62 by 51 millimeters yet they were able to replace the gun power with pressured gamma radiation that had been deposited into solids. Not even the smartest man at Harvard could achieve something like that and gamma radiation in a solid form had been been a theory. Whoever this guy is, he made it happen." He then takes out a piece of armor and tries crushing it with the strength that Hulk was granting him. "The skin is made of titanium and had been doused with heavy amounts of gamma radiation to make it durable to my attacks." He takes out a wire that was leaking green fluid. "Step back, Ricky," he warns before he walks out of the cave to examine the green fluids. "Promethium? Number 61 on the periodic table?" He looks off to the side, wondering how could the extremely rare radioactive element on the periodic table have played a role in the robots. "Promethium is radioactive, but used only in research. It is used to charge atomic batteries." He suddenly deduced its reasoning for the radioactive element to be part of the robot. "That means, if these guys are using Promethium as some kind of 'blood' for the robots, that must mean their 'hearts' are made of atomic energy and they need the Promethium to keep them charged. That means, these robots stamina are infinite as long as there is Promethium but only a limited amount exists around the world. Whoever built these robots has access to Promethium or...knows how to make Promethium." He throws the wire out of his hand before running back into the cave to look at the hole he punched in the robot's chest.

"The only people who know how to make, or at least have access to Promethium, are the smartest people in the world. The smartest people in the world are called Intelligentsia and they're headquartered in Germany." As he started speaking aloud, all the clues suddenly made more sense and he was able to paint a perfect picture of what this whole conspiracy was. "That means, its Intelligencia that's after me? That doesn't make sense, that group was disbanded a long time ago and most of the members were arrested for conspiracy. I've kept away from Germany the entire time except…"

A flashback had suddenly hit him.

He was in Germany the year previous and he was involved in a plane crash. A military plane flying over the great city of Germany was crashed by someone inside and almost destroyed the Berlin Cathedral. He was a witness and he ran towards the plane to help whoever he could and he pulled a young woman out of the wreckage. He could recognize by her clothing that she was some sort of government agent and he entranced by her beauty for a second. She said that her brother was still inside and he ran inside the plane to pull out a wounded person and lay him next to her. Once he helps patch up their wounds, he was shot in the shoulder by an unseen threat from the plane and he lost his temper. He hulked out right in front of the two siblings and he destroyed whatever threat he spotted but the two siblings continued with whatever objective they had prior but this incident in Germany was Hulk's first appearance to the public. Someone working with Intelligencia had seen the Hulk in action and became jealous of his powers.

To think, had that plane not crashed, he would not be in this situation. Butterfly effect.

"If all of the members of Intelligentsia were arrested for conspiracy and these mercenaries are working for someone hunting me down, then that could only mean that one of them evaded arrest. That little dwarf that tried to tranq me in the car was Yuri Topolov, a Russian caught in the blast radius of a ballistic missile launch site. He had skin as thick as Hulk and his intelligence was extreme but not as extreme as Samuel Sterns." Then everything came tumbling down like a bookshelf falling over. He gasps as he finally realized everything that was going on. "Samuel Sterns is the man chasing after me. He is the only member of Intelligentsia that wasn't arrested and he had an IQ of 1005. I remember. It has been so long, almost five years, but I remember the day that Samuel Sterns changed forever."

"What?"

Bruce looked to see Kate standing at the entrance of the cave. He moves over to her and tells her everything that he figured out. "I know everything."

"What are you talking about?" she asked in confusion and curiosity.

"Samuel Sterns, the Leader, is after me. He's the one who built these robots and he has been chasing after me for the longest time."

"First of all, who is the Leader and how do you know all of this?"

Bruce explained, "I know this guy because he tried to help me." He notices the irony of how the person helping him was now his enemy. It was enough to cause him to laugh a little. He then explained who Samuel Sterns was in a flashback.

During his second year as Hulk, he and Betty went to a biologist who worked at Empire State University named Samuel Sterns. They had been communicating via encrypted conversations online and Samuel Sterns invited Bruce to come to the university so they can finally cure him. They strapped Bruce down a table and injected him with the cure. The plan backfires but Sterns was knocked to the ground when Bruce hulked out and Bruce's green blood from a jar slipped through cracks and it dripped onto the wound on his forehead. That's when Sterns' cranium started expanding and even as Hulk wrecked the lab and it took all of Betty's effort to calm down Bruce, he swore he saw Samuel Sterns smiling as his head grew.

After the incident, Samuel Sterns saw an opportunity and abandoned Bruce and Betty to become a member of the world-famous Intelligencia, an organization composed of the smartest men in the world. Yuri Topolov, who already was Gargoyle at this time, became his right-hand man. Despite being the smartest one of the seven members of Intelligencia, having an IQ of 1005, they disowned him, saying that they couldn't trust someone who has intelligence has been artificially enhanced. They said that he was arrogant and unstable and him joining up with the group was not out of altruism, as what the goals of Intelligencia were originally for, but it was to be the smartest one in the room. That's when Samuel Sterns turned on the group and framed them for conspiracy. Then when Bruce came back into his life, he hunted him down to destroy all that Inelligencia had built.

"Looks like it is brains versus brawn," Kate said with a wince after hearing the story. "So this guy, Leader, has been chasing us for almost two weeks and you for years over insecurity and obsessive need for being the best?"

Bruce confirmed by nodding, "Leader may be smart, but he has the temper tantrum of a five-year-old. That can be his greatest weakness."

"So, what are his abilities aside from high intelligence?"

"From what I read on his _Wikipedia_ page that he arrogantly posted himself, he has superhuman mental acumen. He is capable of knowledge and comprehension that is beyond the human ability to understand. The potential of his intelligence is nearly unlimited, being capable of mastering every worldly subject and adopting concepts completely foreign to his environment. His higher brain functions, including pattern recognition, information storage and retrieval, and logical and philosophical structuring have been enhanced to inhuman levels. He also has total recall of every event he has witnessed since the accident that transformed him and can calculate possibilities and outcomes so accurately that it borders on predicting the future. But, as I said before, he does have a weakness and it is his arrogance, immaturity, and obsession and it is this obsession that constantly causes him to lose sight of necessary details and act prematurely. His egotism is so large, that his goals are impractical on every possible degree to achieve even if he was a regular human."

Kate stared at Bruce with a facial expression mixed with shock and confusion (if those two words could fit in the same category). She blinked a few times before blankly asking, "What?"

"Was that too fast?" She shook her head slowly and he asked, "Just saying that entire paragraph and remembering it was a pain in the ass." He managed to make her laugh a little and that inspired him to keep speaking, "So, I don't think we should take Leader lightly. He may be a spoiled brat but he is a smart spoiled brat."

"I am legit picturing myself putting a bullet in his big head. That would be funny, I'd like to see his gamma-irradiated brains splattered all out."

Bruce shook his head in disagreement, "I would rather just put him behind bars. Just because he can almost border precognition doesn't necessarily mean he can predict me sneaking upon him."

"Well, how do we beat someone three, four times as smart as Albert Einstein?"

Bruce looked down at the ground and put his hand underneath his jaw as he tried thinking. Unlike Leader, who could come up with solutions in less than ten seconds, he was still Bruce and he needed time to calculate and think. "The only thing that I can think of is we outsmart him somehow. The last time I remember him, I told him that it was anger that triggered my transformation. I'm pretty sure since it was a bullet that made me hulk out the last time he saw me hulk out and I was screaming in anger, that he most likely still thinks that it is anger that triggers my mutation. Currently, Hulk and I work together and we both have a hand on the wheel."

"And?"

"If he wants my powers, then he's going to try and make me mad. Only thing is, there is a bit of a problem. The Leader wants me to hulk out so he can steal my abilities while Hulk wants to hulk out so he can fight. If this guy is that smart, then he'll probably strap me to a machine and suck the gamma radiation out of me dry and absorb it into himself. One thing I know for sure is that he is unaware that Hulk is more than just a force, Hulk is another person with his personality."

"Even if he does gain your power, Hulk will still have a hand on the wheel? And because you and Hulk work together and you guys have a mutual relationship, then it's possible that Hulk can tear down Leader from the inside out if he does gain your power."

"When you say it like that, Kate, you make it sound so simple. If we just willingly let ourselves be captured, then Leader will suspect something. We barely managed to trick him into coming to Egypt and since he knows that outwitted him most likely, then he will be even more cautious. That means, if we are going to be captured, then it has to be genuine."

"How the hell are we supposed to make our capture genuine? We already made our capture look genuine and Leader sent a whole army of robots after us. Not to mention I got pricked in the neck by that dwarf." Despite only having maybe half a second worth of light before she passed out from the M99, she saw that it was a gray-colored dwarf that took her down in the car. "Why can't we just admit surrender?"

Bruce shook his head in disapproval before answering, "If I'm going to be captured by Leader, I'd rather the odds be in my favor. I'd rather be captured where I want when I want." Once he realized what he said, he realized that it sounded like a bright idea. The Leader is arrogant and smart and he is the reason those two words can work in a single sentence. Maybe _he_ underestimated Leader. "If I am correct, the Leader's ego will take over. I can turn myself in and while he will suspect something, he will never suspect something for long."

"What about me? He has seen my face so he will do something about me."

"Chances are, he'll want you around to witness his grand glory."

"How do you know?"

"Because he likes to stick it to his enemies. He did so by framing Intelligencia and his wild temper tantrum would prevent him from resisting. Chances are, he'll keep me captive, and show off his ultimate victory then dispose of you."

"Wow," she droned sarcastically, "He's going to be a typical show off in front of me. What a boy."

"I am getting so sick and tired of Leader and his big head. I am so sick of running and constantly looking over my shoulder. I cannot take it anymore."

Kate tilted her head as she remembered what Bruce said on the boat and she used that piece of information to let him know that he contradicted himself. "You always said you run from the fight and I said you run from the fight because you know that you're going to win. Why the sudden change?"

"Now that I know who it is, it makes everything feel so much better." He moves away from Kate to go sit back down near the robot. As he sits down, Ricky jumps into his lap and starts licking his face. Bruce rubs the back of his hair before looking back at Kate and saying, "Leader is as predictable as they come. Once I take out his base of operations and put him behind bars, then I am free. I will never have to run anymore. Sure, I may still be on the run from someone but I can finally get off of this case that has been nagging at me for a year. The last time I felt peace was when Betty was in my arms. Now that she and her father are dead, I have to do something to make up for it. I can't just be running for the rest of my life. I'm just running and because I'm running, I don't have a life."

Kate sits down beside him and takes Ricky in her lap, petting him affectionately. "It is because you _are_ running that you are still alive."

"But at a price." He rested his forearms on his knees as he thought back on his life before the science experiment went wrong. He would give anything to have a life again. Hulk, he had no problem staying but he yearned for a life like a regular human being but even if he did shake Leader off of his back, it just wasn't possible. He could get married, but he can't have kids. With all that gamma radiation flooding all of his bodily fluids, he is physically unable to. He sighs and shook his head at the thought of having a son and he always pictured having a family with Betty but with her death, he figured what was the point? Even if he rid Leader out of his life permanently, he will still have to do deal with someone who wants him, Hulk, or both for whatever BS reason. "It is because of Leader that I can never settle down and get married. I do have desires to start a family but my constant worry of people like Leader hunting me down has been the only obstacle. I am so tired and exhausted. And I'm still mourning over Betty."

After a brief pause, Kate scooted next to Bruce and rested her head on his shoulder and sighed deeply. She grabbed his arm and gave it a gentle tug. "I'll help you out, Bruce. We can take down Leader together." She looks up to him, staring deeply into his eyes. She briefly looked down at his exposed chest and saw that he was ripped. "Then, after that, you are free. Free to start a family with whoever you want. Wife, kids."

"I can't have kids," he told her, "With all the gamma radiation in my body, I can't have children. It's disappointing."

Kate's lip quivered upon hearing Bruce adit that he is unable to have any children. She lets out a loud sigh at the thought of her experience. "I can't have kids either. I'm infertile."

"Oh," Bruce realized, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she insisted before she looked back at his ripped body. "You are ripped for a human."

Bruce looks down his chest and chuckles at her statement, "I have Hulk to thank for this."

* * *

Leader, Gargoyle, and the mercenaries made it to the cave that the tech tracked them to. They found partial giant footprints in the sand that lead to the cave but when they got there, they found the robot completely dismantled limb from limb and there was writing on the wall in Promethium. It read, 'Nice try, Leader'. That's when Leader lost his shit once again and threw another of his temper tantrums.

"Why didn't you guys retrieve the robot?" he berated his henchman like they had a choice in the matter. "Now he knows who I am before I have captured him." He looks over at Gargoyle and points at him. "You should've knocked him out in the car."

Gargoyle surrenders and holds his hands up, "Sir, he hulked out before the M99 could take full effect. He must have an explosive temper if he can transform _that_ fast."

The Leader paused for a second before rubbing his green chin and licked his lips in wonder. "Yes, he must have had some practice. Either that or Hulk is more prone to emerging much faster. I find it hard to believe that Hulk and Bruce both have a hand on the wheel."

Gargoyle was taken aback by the Leader's statement and questioned him by saying, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Bruce Banner has had Hulk within him for five years and if he can transform _before_ M99 knocks him out, then that could only mean that something is going on inside him. Either he has a hot temper or they both have a hand on the wheel." He considers his options, calculating the possibilities of each one, determining that the former has a ten percent chance of being true while the latter has a ninety percent chance of being true. "There is no way in hell Bruce and Hulk are working together. Dr. Banner is a scientist, Hulk is just a force. A force within, incapable of thinking for itself."

"Get your assess cleaning up the robot," Gargoyle orders the mercenaries before he turns back to Leader to challenge him, "What are you even talking about?" Gargoyle's eyes widened when he realized what Leader was saying. He was about to argue with him that Hulk is another person and not a force until he remembered what his goals were. If Hulk was another person with its personality, then that means Leader would kill Banner just to suck Hulk dry. If Banner was dead, then that meant that he couldn't be cured of his Gargoyle condition. He remembers Leader swearing to keep Banner alive long enough to return him to normal, but once he figures out that Hulk is another person with a different personality, then he would abandon his promise and leave him to rot in this deformed condition. The thought of that backstabbing betrayal made him angry and he decided that if Leader was going to stab him in the back, then he deserves every bit of betrayal of his own.

"He must have a quick temper," Gargoyle said, hiding every hint of slyness in his voice. "Maybe the years after the death of Betty Ross have not treated him right. Maybe he is always angry or something."

"_Or something,_ there is no _or something_ in this situation." He turns his head away before looking back at Gargoyle. "I told you that this robot is evidence that proves who we all are so that's why we had to collect it before Hulk could've taken it. But no worries because I have contingencies." He pulls out a detonator and grabs the antenna. He stretches out the antenna to its maximum three feet in length before he pushed the button. Everyone listened but there was no sound. That's when Leader explained, "You thought I was going to leave my headquarters back in London vulnerable? This long-ranged detonator just set off a bomb that sunk the entire lab and erased all evidence of gamma radiation and my work with it. Looks like we're going to have to start back from scratch."

"No," Nelson stepped forward. "Men were still inside."

"And whose fault is it that the robot was dismantled by Banner?"

"Yours," Nelson snapped with venom in his voice, "You were the one who sent us out here. You thought that Banner was challenging you or something so you wanted to prove that you were better. You have the temper tantrum of a five-year-old."

"Shut up, your intelligence is inferior compared to mine. I am a superior being, I have superhuman intelligence, I can act however I want." He looks over to a soldier and calls out to him. "What's your name, son?"

"Blonsky. Emil Blonsky."

"I can tell by the sound of your voice, that you are Russian. And I have correctly deduced that you are from St. Petersburg."

"Yes," Blonsky nodded in confirmation before saying, "I was raised in England though."

"Ex-KGB and I can tell by the ring on your finger and by the marks on your ring finger, you have been married for at least seven years."

Blonsky fidgeted with his wedding ring in fear before he slowly nodded yes. "Her name is Nadia."

"Do you love Nadia, Mr. Blonsky?"

"Yes?"

"Vy by ne khoteli, chtoby s ney sluchilos' chto-to plokhoye, verno? (You wouldn't want something bad to happen to her, right?)"

Blonsky's eyes widen in terror, "What the hell are you spitting on about?"

"Nothing, I'm just wondering how you would react to finding out that your wife dies of mysterious consequences because someone like you fails to make sure that once they leave this cave, no evidence nor any signs of big robots were here in this cave. You, Nelson, and a small group of mercenaries will be cleaning up this robot and if any trace is left behind...you would rather have your wife divorce you." He grabs Gargoyle by the shoulder and drags him out while the others get to work in taking back the robot. "Gargoyle, it is time we step up the game. Before the week is over, we will have Banner in our clutches."

"Don't forget about your promise," he reminded Leader.

"Oh, of course, the promise I made where Bruce will live long enough to cure you of your miserable state. It slipped my mind for a second."

Gargoyle eyes him with anger in his eyes before whispering, "Strange, you never forget anything."

The Leader only smirks like a sly fox before muttering, "Happens sometimes."


	7. Oxygen

Kayseri, Turkey

Days without incident: 4

Bruce, Kate, and Ricky the doggy had arrived in Kayseri, Turkey through a series of private planes and boat rides. They were sitting on a bench and reading newspapers while Ricky had a collar and leash on him. The reason they had chosen Kayseri after Egypt was because from what Bruce gathered on what remains of the robot, Leader has a second base of operations hidden in this country and this city. He knew it was somewhere in this city but he didn't know where. So that's why instead of him being stalked by Leader, he was going to stalk Leader's men. Right now, he was following one of them. Leader and Gargoyle were too superhuman to go out in public, so they had most of their thugs go out for patrolling around the city.

Bruce knew the person sitting on a bench across from them was a mercenary of Leader because of his color scheme. He was wearing an orange sweater with black jeans. The hint is incredibly subtle and very hard for a regular person to catch but Leader has some trust issues with his men and he makes sure that they wear the colors of his suit so he knows who is loyal to him. And the other most obvious reason as to him being an agent of Leader was that there was a shoulder patch that read 'Dux', which is Latin for 'Leader'. Dead giveaway right there.

Bruce had cut a circular hole in the newspaper and stalked the agent intently. Kate was hiding behind a newspaper but looking for other agents.

"Bruce," Kate whispers, "Are you sure this is a very bright idea? I mean, we are on their turf."

Bruce nodded before explaining back in a whisper level, "The last place they would expect us is on their home turf. Plus, their home turf has the whole nine yards. We can take them all out in one place."

"You and Hulk can but what about me and Ricky?"

"There are plenty of roles for the two of you. Neither of you is useless. Just keep your eyes on this agent right here."

The agent being stalked shifted uncomfortably in his seat before putting his mouth to his wristwatch and kissing it. He gets up and walks to the right. Bruce waits a few seconds before he tells Kate to walk in the opposite direction _before_ following him. "You go left, I go right." He looks to his left to see an old man standing before him, glaring at Banner and the newspaper in his hand. Bruce smiled awkwardly and folded up the paper. "Sorry for the newspaper but nothing good is happening in the current events section." He takes the circular piece of paper he cut up and placed it on the newspaper before he ran off before he could be hit over the head with a cane. "People sure can get sensitive over newspapers."

Kate walks in the opposite direction while Bruce follows. He stays behind, keeping his head down with a hat covering the upper part of his face when he tilts his head down. He occasionally looks up to make sure the agent doesn't escape from sight. Whatever turn the agent made into crowds, Bruce would make that same turn ten seconds later. The agent comes to a stop at a tree and Bruce uses this opportunity to stand behind a bush and took out his phone (that had no battery) and (pretends to) scrolls through. He looks up at the thug before he walks forward.

Bruce catches up with him and eventually joins him in a large crowd of people that were about to cross the street. He stays as far behind as possible, briefly looking over his shoulder to see that Kate and Ricky were not that far behind. Someone moved in front of him and knocked Bruce in the shoulder and almost threw him off of his game. Bruce quickly composes himself before he lost sight of his target. He crossed the street and followed in with the crowd as the agent veered off from the crowd.

"Where is he going?" Bruce asked himself.

Bruce followed him into an alleyway. He had been smart and went around the alley to cut him off but the agent disappeared. He looked around the streets, cars coming one way, cars going the other way. There were large crowds of people and he could not see his target. He saw people in orange clothing but he could see nobody that matched his target description. "Damn, must've taken some kind of door." He walked down the alley and put his hands on the wall, feeling for some kind of button. He searched both walls on both sides to find nothing.

Just as he stopped at the midway point of the alley, he heard the sounds of faint footsteps behind him. Pretending that there was nothing to be suspicious about, he continued to look straight, snapping his head in the opposite direction only when he felt like this looming threat was close enough. Behind him, the agent had snuck up on him and raised his hand (which held a syringe filled with M99) above his head and hammered it down. Bruce caught the hand and flipped the agent over his waist. With the agent on the ground, he snatched the syringe out of his hand and injected the agent in the neck with it, knocking him out instantly.

Bruce wiped his hands on his pants and looked at the syringe with distaste. "Stuff like this is bad in the wrong hands." He pulled the unconscious agent to the side of the wall and checked on him to make sure he was alright. "And with him knocked out, there's no trail to Leader's base of operations." He looked over his shoulder to try and figure out how the agent even snuck upon him in the first place. The alley was narrow and no fire escapes between the buildings. It was like he was a ghost who could walk right through walls.

Kate and Ricky caught up to Bruce and they slightly startled him before he calmed down. She pointed at the unconscious body lying on its front and asked, "What happened to this guy?"

He shows Kate the needle, "Another M99 serum. Tried to sneak up on me but I caught him and turned the tables." He throws it to the side and it bounces off the ground with a barely audible thud. "Looks like he's useless now."

Kate shrugged her shoulders like it was her problem, "You were the one who drugged him. Any bright ideas now? How did he even sneak up on you in the first place if you were trailing him?"

"He must've figured out that I was trailing him and he lured me down this alleyway. I tried to cut him off but when I came back, he disappeared."

"Like a ghost," Kate echoed dramatically.

"I don't believe in ghosts." He looks forward to then back to see any details that he might have overlooked. "How did he manage to sneak up on me? Did you see him circle this building?"

Kate shook her head.

"And there are no fire escapes so he couldn't have gone up and there are no doors to either building from this alleyway."

"So back to square one which is he is a ghost."

Bruce shook his head and refused, "No, we're missing something." He paced around the alley like a detective, muttering to himself, looking from Point A to Point B before his eyes landed on the unconscious body and he went silent. "Wait a second." He stood back to where he was standing before he was attacked and used his geometry skills to figure out a few things.

"The only way he could've snuck up on me as if there was some kind of secret passageway somewhere down this path of the alleyway." He looks at Kate, "Stand where I'm standing."

Kate obliges and stands where he was standing a few seconds ago. Bruce does a few more calculations in his head before he reenacts the thug sneaking up on him from behind. "He was positioned more to the wall to my left when he attacked me. I knew because when I flipped him over, he hit the ground to my forty-five-degree angle right here. So that means he started his path from this wall. So that means that the secret passageway is hidden somewhere on the left wall." He looks back at Kate and asks for his bag, "Pull out sharpie marker." Kate digs through his backpack after putting it down from her back and hands his a sharpie marker. He draws a big rectangle on the wall that was his height and width from his initial attack point to the end of the wall.

"You know, drawing on the wall is considered vandalism," Kate semi jokes at Bruce as he comes back.

"If there is a secret passageway in the wall, then it belongs to Leader's lair and he doesn't deserve a clean wall."

"Even so, that's about twenty to thirty feet of wall with five-foot-eight inches of height. It's going to take forever to look for a secret passageway and that's even if you know what you are looking for."

Bruce acknowledges her statement by saying, "True. We can't just be touching the wall like a blind person...even though that is what Leader would want someone to do if they were looking for one of his secret passages."

"What are you suggesting, Bruce?"

Bruce looked over his shoulder to the end of the alley to see people walking left and right out of sight. Then his eyes gazed down to the unconscious thug's hands to see that he wasn't wearing any gloves so he would've left fingerprints behind. "I have a couple of dollars on me. I want you to go to the nearest outlet store and pick up a few things. Get me a piece of paper from my bag and I'll tell you what to get. I'll give you some money to compensate you."

Once Bruce was handed a piece of paper, he used the wall to write on it and he wrote down a list of 'groceries' for her. The grocery list included

Two Blacklights.

Two bottles of fluorescence spray.

One bottle of green spray paint.

Kate went off to the store while Bruce and Ricky stayed behind with the unconscious thug. Bruce sat down on the seat of his pants and pressed his back to the wall while Ricky climbed into his lap and licked his face. "Maybe when we're all done with this, we can get some food. I'm hungry, how about you?"

Ricky whimpers in response before licking his lips. The dog then went to one side of the wall and started clawing at it, giving Bruce the perfect indication as to where the door was.

"Food it is then, Ricky."

About twenty minutes later, Kate came back with all the tools and she helped Bruce get to work. They used ultraviolet light to light up a small section of the wall and then sprayed the spray onto the wall to look for some kind of fingerprint on the wall area that Ricky was clawing at. They moved along the wall and continued the process of spraying and searching until they came across half of a handprint in the center of the wall. "Look," he points, "A handprint was left. Thanks, unconscious thug."

Bruce takes out another piece of paper and scribbles it on the wall until he traced over a door outline. Once he found the outline, he sprayed that area with the green spray paint. He repeated this process until he had the whole door outline with green spray paint.

"Here's the secret passageway," Bruce pointed to the green door outline. "What do we do from here, I have no idea."

Kate leaned in and whispered into Bruce's ear, "Maybe a fingerprint unlocks it."

Bruce cringed at the warmth feeling of Kate's breath against his ear but he picks up the unconscious thug and puts his hand in the same place he put his hand earlier. The hidden door opened up and Bruce, Kate, and Ricky entered as Bruce dropped the body.

They headed inside and shut the door behind them but left it open slightly. Once they stepped into the light, that's when they realized where they were. They were in the lobby of a hospital with seven floors. All the people in the lobby looked at the two foreigners like they were from another world (in a way...). Bruce looks for more agents with that orange color scheme. "Hi," he said awkwardly to the crowd, not used to such public places.

One of the clerks in a white lab coat stared at Bruce with a blank expression before pointing a door behind him leading to an elevator. Bruce and Kate studied him suspiciously before they made a beeline to the elevator. Two security guards in blue followed them and got in the elevator with them.

The first security guard pushes the seventh-floor button and the five (plus Ricky) wait patiently as the elevator ascends. Once the doors opened, a security guard stepped out and pointed to his left.

"Uh…" Bruce had no idea what to say to these people pointing him in various directions but he went along with it. He would've left Kate outside but he didn't want to risk it. If this agent knew that Bruce was trailing him, he could've had backup to take out Kate and use her as leverage. She had a better chance of just staying with him (plus she refused to leave without helping him).

Bruce walked in the direction left of the security guard with Kate and Ricky the dog trailing him behind. He looks over his shoulder to flash a smug grin at the security, silently reminding him not to get him mad.

"Leader is expecting you," the second security guard said and caught Bruce's attention. "He deduced you would be here and he deduced that you would follow one of us to this hospital. If you want to talk to Leader, head to room 705. He expects _only_ Bruce so Miss Waynesboro and your dog will have to stay here with Nelson."

Bruce looks over at Kate for a second before turning back to the security guard, "Tell Leader on your walkie that I will be arriving into his office. And that no harm comes to Kate or my dog. After all, you don't want to make me angry."

"Of course," the security guard said emotionless before he takes out his walkie and calls in Leader, "Banner is on his way and requests that Kate and his pet dog be unharmed." Static was heard before the Leader spoke back.

"No promises, Blonsky."

"It's a request, my Leader, that the High-Value Individual is making. Let no harm come to Kate and the dog."

"Fine," Leader complained about on the line, "All units listening, Banner is here in the hospital but no harm shall come to Kate Waynesboro or the dog she brought with. Anybody who disobeys these orders will be experimented on."

Blonsky looks at Kate and nods to indicate that they were safe. "Now, Banner. Room 705."

Before Bruce could walk, Kate grabbed him by the hands. "Do you trust these guys enough to leave me and Ricky with them?"

Bruce nodded, "The only way to get you full protection from them was to have Leader personally give the order to have no harm brought to you. If I left you, they'd find you. If you ran, they would've found you. This was the only way to guarantee your safety. Plus, with my condition, these guys know not to make me angry." He eyes Blonsky and Nelson with a smirk, "They would not like me when I'm angry." He bends forward to pet Ricky on the head.

"Do you even have a plan, Bruce?"

"I'm improving as I go along. But the plan was to meet with Leader in person. If he wants my power, then I'm going to give it to him." Blonsky and Nelson urge him to get walking because the Leader was getting very impatient. "I have to go now." Bruce took a step back, his hand that hand been entangled in Kate's hand slowly untwining before he walks away and leaves Kate and Ricky with Blonsky and Nelson.

Blonsky leans in to whisper to Nelson, "Can you imagine having all that power? To have all the power in the world?"

Nelson shook his head, "I can't because I don't want that power. I became a mercenary because I have a family to feed."

"I have a family as well," Blonsky reminded in an offended way. "But, to have all the power in the world to do whatever you want? I am envious of Banner. I wish, more than anything, that I could have that power."

"Be careful what you wish for," Nelson said, "You might just get it. Wield that power wrong and you could be a monster."

* * *

Banner made it to room 705 where Leader sat down in a chair and Gargoyle stood beside him with both of their backs turned to him. Bruce closed the door and caught their attention by calling out their names. Gargoyle, who was eager to meet the scientist more calmly and professionally, turned and greeted Banner happily.

"Dr. Banner, it is so nice to see you again. You probably remember me."

Bruce did, "You're the one who tried to drug me in the car. Didn't work out so well, did it?"

"I apologize. I don't care what happens next, I just want something and then I will be out of your life forever."

Bruce tilted his head, "What could that possibly be?"

"I want to be cured. I can't stand this miserable form."

"Gargoyle," Leader called out with his back still turned to Banner. "Don't insult yourself by begging on your knees to our enemy." He rotates around in his chair to meet Banner for the first time in person in years. He slowly pushes himself out of his chair and stalks Bruce with anticipation. "Banner."

"Sterns."

The Leader makes a fist with his hands and almost snapped at Bruce before he calmed himself down. "I really would wish that you would call me Leader instead of Sterns. Samuel Sterns is such an inferior name and I can't stand it."

Bruce feigned sympathy and apologized halfheartedly, "I'm sorry, that was mean. I didn't mean to upset you by calling you by your _real_ name, mister."

The Leader got pissed off again and almost snapped again, "It's Leader, not mister."

"If your name is Leader, then what are you the leader of?"

The Leader was on the verge of snapping until he deduced what Banner was trying to do and it made him feel so much better. "You're trying to confuse me, throw me off my senses. But it's not going to work." He sunk back into his chair and pointed to the chair a few feet across from him. "Sit down or fall."

Bruce took the offer and decided to sit down. He sank into the chair comfortable before looking at Leader. Gargoyle was in the corner of the room, making coffee for the two.

"So," Bruce began, "Mister Leader, we can at least be civil and have a conversation. No need to get angry over the smallest little detail."

The Leader was humored and chuckled as he nodded, "I guess we can be civil. What was the longest you went without any 'incidents'?"

"My record was a whole year but because of you guys, the record was shattered."

"Tsk, tsk, my honor. What motives do you have in mind, Dr. Banner?"

"I came here to take you out for one, and two, come to some sort of compromise. A deal. A treaty of peace."

The Leader looked at him dumbfounded. "You want peace?"

"I don't have a life because I'm always on the run. I only wish to make peace with my enemy."

"It is because of what you are that you are my enemy. What makes you think that I'll just give up and walk away?"

Bruce was just getting started with his negotiation. "You are way too smart to walk away without a fight, even though that would be the right thing to do. You may be the smartest person in the room, hell, even the smartest person in a room of the smartest people, but do you know why you always fail? Because you are a big baby?"

"Oh am I?"

"You are a big baby in an adult body. Do you think that once you take down all the work that Intelligencia had built, you'll be a hero? Do you know what it's like to carry this power, to have to keep it chained up as much as possible because once it is unchained, then it's unchained."

"I don't value love, I value respect."

"The Hulk is a disease that I've been trying to get rid of for years." That was a lie but Leader didn't know that and he wanted to keep at least one ace up his sleeve. "I can't bear this power anymore."

The Leader raised an eyebrow at the sound of what he was hearing and he liked it so far. "Do my ears deceive me? Am I hearing what I could only dream to hear of?"

Bruce slowly but surely nodded at Leader, sensing anticipation growing with the villain. He could mentally hear Hulk talking to him in the back of his head and he mentally responded.

_Hulk: Hulk doesn't want to leave Banner._

_Bruce: Trust me on this, buddy._

_Hulk: Why should Hulk trust you?_

_Bruce: Because you're me, remember?_

_Hulk: Hulk is confused._

_Bruce: The only way to defeat a Leader is to give him what he wants. No amount of muscle will take him down._

_Hulk: What is the plan?_

_Bruce: As I said, we give him what he wants._

"Yes," Bruce confirms. "I think it is time to throw in the towel for Hulk and myself. I've been on the run for far too long. I miss the feeling of laying down on a couch without the fear of being caught, I miss opening the refrigerator without worry about leaving gamma-irradiated DNA behind, and I miss the feeling of just laying down on a bed just for the sake of laying down in bed. This Hulk condition _is_ a disease and-"

"And I'm the cure," Leader said more as a statement with enthusiasm rather than a question.

"If that's what you want to call yourself, then yeah, you're the cure."

"You're…" the Leader was unable to speak for the longest time and he could not remember since before his accident when he was so shocked he couldn't speak, "You're going to give me all of your powers for real?"

"If you think you can live with it, take it," Bruce declared, "Take it all."

"I will," Leader says smugly.

Gargoyle finally arrives with the coffee and hands a cup to both men. He finally seized his opportunity to speak and said to Bruce, "Banner, you know what I want."

"I do?"

"Where is your research on gamma mutation? As a compassionate scientist, surely you could find it within yourself to help me return to normal, please?" Bruce pretended to fall asleep which caused Gargoyle to slap him to wake him, "Pay attention and don't play games with me."

"Gargoyle," Leader announced, "Now is not the time for your quest for normalcy. We have a great opportunity presented in front of us. Banner is offering us the gift of the Hulk itself." _Chances this is real, point one percent. Chances it is fake, ninety-nine point nine percent. I don't care._ "Well then, Dr. Banner, I think we can come to a treaty of peace after all. You give me all of Hulk's power and I will put an end to your miserable life of hell on the run."

_I caught him right where I want him. He's too arrogant to even consider that I might be playing him._ "To end my misery, you must also stay away from Kate Waynesboro as well."

"Of course, Dr. Banner."

"I'm glad to hear you say it." He holds out his open hand, "The power of Hulk is all yours."


	8. Uranium

In the waiting room, Kate was sitting in a chair between Nelson on her left and Blonsky to her right and Ricky laying down in front of her. She pats her knees and begins whistling 'Old Macdonald' mostly to keep herself entertained while also trying to annoy the two mercenaries sitting next to her. They were able to put up with it and were unfazed. The fact that they were unfazed fazed Kate and she was the one who was annoyed at them for not being annoyed. But she still engaged in a conversation with them.

"So, what are your motives?" she asks abruptly. "Leader wants Bruce's power, Gargoyle wants to be cured," Bruce told her his enemies' motives before they arrived here. "What about you two?"

"I need the money, I have starving mouths to feed in my family," Nelson answered.

Blonsky then said, "I just need the money, nothing else at all." He then looks at her and smirks, "What about you? Why are you here? What is your motive?"

"Peer pressure," she joked, "I'm far too sensitive to stand up for myself and Bruce told me to go with him and I did." She thought the joke was funny but it wasn't to the group she was sitting with so she took a more serious turn, "I just wanted to help out."

"You're lucky you're with Banner, otherwise Leader would've tracked you down in a flash and killed you. Or even experimented on you to try and make a She-Hulk or something." Blonsky sighs deeply out of impatience, waiting for Leader to snap off more orders. "I am so envious of the power that Banner has. If Leader was doing experiments, I would be the first to volunteer."

"No thank you," Nelson replied over Kate's head to Blonsky, "I like my human body and I love the fact that I can be free to express my emotions anytime. So no Hulk experiments for me. Plus, I don't want to put that kind of stress on my family."

Kate's look transitioned from one to the other as each person began talking. She was observing their conversation and even Ricky sighed in boredom. She finally asked, "Any word from Leader?"

Nelson checked his walkie talkie to confirm her question. "Nothing. Looks like you still leverage to us."

"Leverage, what the hell do you mean, Nelson?"

"You thought that you were just going to sit here for absolutely no reason at all? You thought wrong."

"You know," Blonsky began, "Leader predicted that you would arrive here and he told us to keep you in our clutches one way or another for the big event tonight."

"What the hell are you talking about?" she snapped at the two and stood up only for Blonsky to physically force her to sit back down.

"You think Banner would change willingly, it's anger that brings out the monster and what is more infuriating than watching someone you care about get hurt in front of you and you're unable to do something about it?"

Kate forced herself to laugh to try and cast it off as a joke but she was getting scared of what she was hearing. "You guys are such amateurs; you think that just because your boss predicted something like this would happen, then it would happen."

"You know," Blonsky challenged her, "It was also Leader who predicted that you would be sitting in this chair right where you are sitting in right now."

She went silent and stared hard at Blonsky, wary of whatever move he was going to make. "If you guys even think about using that M99 on me again-" The slightest twitch in his hand caused her to jump out of her seat mid-sentence. Nelson struck her in the back of the head hard with the butt of his gun and knocked her unconscious. Ricky started barking hysterically at his fallen master but Blonsky already lunged for the dog and tranqed it with an M99 syringe. Both the dog and human laid unconscious side by side.

"I love this tranquilizer," Blonsky cheers for himself, "Not the first time I've used it on this dog as well."

"Shut up about your victory," Nelson berated. He grabbed Kate and picked her up over the shoulder before ordering, "I'll take her to the Gamma Knife lab, you get that dog out of here. But don't kill it."

"Sure." Blonsky picks up the unconscious dog and takes it down the elevator while Nelson transports Kate to the room with the Gamma Knife.

* * *

Several minutes later, after Bruce made his 'peaceful' negotiations with Leader, he was taken to a lab with a chair with a dome built around it. He was changed into purple cargo shorts and strapped in to make sure that he would not be escaping anytime soon. Gargoyle, who still makes one last attempt to become human, approaches Banner with desperation.

"Please," Gargoyle begged like a whining child, "I want to be normal. Please, make me normal. How do I cure myself of this hideous form."

"Gargoyle," Leader called out again to his subordinate, "Now is not the time. Wait for my ultimate victory and then you can celebrate your loss."

"So," Bruce spoke dryly and somewhat sarcastically. "What is this machine supposed to do? I'm no expert but it doesn't look like something a chiropractor would use."

The Leader laughed in pity at how weak jokes before sitting down in a chair surrounded by a dome on the opposite side of Bruce. "Joke all you want and don't be alarmed by anything that comes next." Leader rolls down his orange sleeves to reveal bullet-shaped holes drilled into his wrists and he begins plugging an orange wire into each wrist before explaining what this was all about. "You see those wires connected to your capsule? Those wires were designed by me for the sole purpose of siphoning gamma radiation specifically from the Hulk and redirected to a target, namely me, granting me all of your strength and with my brains and brawns matched together, I become a god and you become nothing but a lifeless husk."

"Lifeless husk?" Gargoyle panicked. "That was not part of our deal." He points an accusing finger at Leader in his capsule, "You promised Banner would remain alive long enough to change me back to normal." A gun was fired and Gargoyle collapsed to the ground on his knees, clutching his bloody stomach in agony. He presses his lips together and looks up to see Leader aiming a gun he built with a red handle, trigger, and barrel, indicating that he was shot with a gamma-irradiated bullet.

"I lied," Leader laughed as he tucked the gun away.

"You…" Gargoyle wheezed, "...traitor…"

"You're allowed to die, Gargoyle; we are in a hospital after all." He then turns back to Bruce and nods at him. "Now, as I was saying, doctor, rage on."

Before Bruce was going 'rage on', he decided to mock Leader one more time because he was a spoiled brat who deserved to get his ass handed to him. "I'm feeling pretty relaxed and mellow right now; you clowns put on a good show."

And Leader's rage was about to reach its peak, "What the hell? Why aren't you mad? You told me you would give me your power so why aren't you giving me your powers?!"

Bruce's eyes drift off to the room, pretending to study it with interest, "Say, this is a very comfortable place. Did you guys do this yourself?"

"Wow," Leader almost gasped before he realized what Bruce was doing to him, "How droll and characteristically unamusing you are, Banner."

"Thank you, I'm complimented."

"And I'm offended. I think it's time to wake up the beast inside of you. You may have had a good five years with this green creature inside of you, but time for a new moniker to take its place." The Leader grabs a remote from one of his pockets and aims it towards Bruce's capsule. "Say 'ahh'." He presses a button.

Bruce regretted it, but he screamed 'ahh' in agony as electricity shocked him from the chair he was sitting in. It lasted for maybe a second or two before he calmed down and took a deep breath. He was not feeling angry and Hulk did not feel like coming out any time soon. "Damn," he mutters to himself, "He's trying to wake you up, Hulk."

_Hulk is not coming out, no matter what._

"What?"

"What?" The Leader repeated after him, "Shocked that you didn't muscle out? It's okay, I can wait all day if I have to. Why don't I up the shocking?" He presses a different button and sends electric shocks that were more painful than before. Bruce still did not hulk-out because Hulk refused to hulk-out. "Still keeping a tight lid on those emotions, no worries. Just a few more shocks should do the trick." Bruce was shocked several more times with a voltage that was more painful than the last. It felt like his insides melting into liquid and he was crying in agony after each shock.

"Tsk, tsk, still holding onto your emotions? How noble of you."

Bruce breaths deeply and slowly as he could to slow down his beating heart. He was in a mental argument with Hulk over why he should just break free.

_Bruce: Hulk, give him ninety percent of the power then leave the remaining ten percent with me. Destroy Leader from the inside out._

_Hulk: Hulk is not coming out, no matter what puny human says._

_Bruce: Both of our lives depend on it. We could be tortured for the rest of our lives._

_Hulk: Hulk can deal with it._

_Bruce: Leader will be talking on and on and on over the most ridiculous things, we have to take him down._

_Hulk: Hulk doesn't want to fight._

_Bruce: Why not?_

_Hulk: Leader is too annoying to fight. He is no threat, Hulk can beat him any day, but Hulk is tired of his annoying behavior._

_Bruce: All the more reason to break us both out of this capsule. If you do nothing, you'll only have to put up with him more._

_Hulk: Then he will know Hulk is better than him._

_Bruce: You've turned into a real narcissist._

"What are you thinking, Banner?" The Leader abruptly questioned after picking up on Bruce just staring off into space. "You thinking of how much you're going to miss Hulk when he's gone? Don't worry, Bruce; you'll be too dead to miss him."

Leader realizes that Banner was not going to hulk-out from physical pain and considering that he transforms out of emotions, he took a more psychological approach. He spoke into his earpiece, "Nelson, is she ready?" Nelson responded that she was. "Good, turn on the camera." Leader then looks back at Bruce, who snaps out of his mild conversation with Hulk. "I give up. I give up...on shocking you into becoming the Hulk."

"Do you admit defeat, though," Bruce asked in a voice of jokiness and raspiness.

Leader denied this claim before saying, "There's no point in using physical force. I mean, Hulk is based on emotion and not pain. So, I'm going to take a more tactical approach."

Bruce rolled his eyes and smirked at Leader like he knew something that he didn't. "Sure you are."

"Of crouse," the villain 'reassured", "I already planned out a contingency."

Bruce's eyes widened in horror when a sudden thought struck him like lightning, "What the hell did you just do?"

"Look over the monitor." He uses the remote to flip on a screen to Banner's left and there laid Kate in an MRI machine with duct tape around her mouth and a terrified look on her face. "Isn't she a beauty?"

"Kate," Bruce screamed in terror, "You promised not to lay a finger on her!"

"I lied," Leader laughed as he looked over to Gargoyle, who was still crawling out of the room and leaving a bloody trail behind. "If you thought this was my only endgame, then you are dumber than my mother, and she's in a coma."

Leader leaned back in his chair with a sigh before he explained the scenario that Bruce was in. "So, this is what's going to happen. You are going to transform into the Hulk or else I'm going to turn on the MRI device with a click of this button and Kate's head will explode. I know, dramatic, but let me explain." He gestures to the MRI device on the screen, "The Gamma Knife room I replaced gamma radiation with microwave emitters. Which means once I press this button, her brain will be microwaved until it blows with brain matter splattering all over the room. So you have a choice of either turning green or turning Kate into a casserole." He holds up the button to the screen to emphasize his point. "Speak now or forever hold your-"

Gargoyle (who snuck up on leader) swung a wooden chair on Leader's arm, causing him to have the remote slip through his fingers and Gargoyle to swing the chair again at his stomach area. The wires fell out of the drilled holes in Leader's wrist as he dives for Gargoyle and takes the dwarf to the ground.

The Leader may have been taller than Gargoyle, but Gargoyle had training from when he was part of the Soviet Army before it disbanded in 1991. He was able to evade the Leader's grasp despite being wounded and jump onto Leader's back and put him in a chokehold. The sight of this would've made Bruce laugh at their bickering but he was too concerned for Kate's safety to laugh.

"Gargoyle, you traitor!" the hypocritical villain shouted at the top of his lungs. He stood up on his feet and slammed his back into the wall, crushing Gargoyle like pastrami between two bread slices. Gargoyle yells in pain as his wound expands like a balloon inflating. On the other hand, the Leader knows how to perfect every single martial arts move of any kind of martial arts known to man and he flipped Gargoyle over his shoulder and broke his arm.

He steps over his treacherous right-hand man to reinsert the wires into his wrists. He did so just in the nick of time because it looked like Bruce's anger was finally about to spike.

_Bruce: Hulk, if you're not going to hulk-out for me, do it for Kate._

_Hulk: Hulk never hurt Kate, Hulk protect Kate._

_Bruce: It's now or never. Give Leader what he wants. Give him power._

Bruce's eyes turn green, all the rage that had slowly been building up within him finally came to a release as he grinds her teeth and stares at Leader with a death stare to pierce his soul. He saw the Leader cheer and it brought a small smirk to his mouth. The skin all over his body turned green and the wires connected to his capsule start to heat up. Bruce roars in anger as his arms expand and muscles grow. He snarls like a dog as he reaches the final stage of his transformation and is now Hulk.

The capsule was siphoning all of Hulk's power and that's when the wires heated up to the point they turned a dark red color. In the other capsule, Leader's eyes widened as he realized that Bruce was now Hulk and that all the power was about to be siphoned. He feels the blood in his wrists heat up like a furnace and he starts burning up but he ignores the pain and cranes his head back. "The power!" His already green skin was turning a darker shade and his body began expanding, muscles very slowly protruding from his limbs, stretching his orange uniform to its limit. The first sign of his uniform ripping caused Leader to cheer once more. He grew in his seat and the seat bent underneath his weight. It was like the first time he saw Bruce banner turn into the Hulk: Beautiful, god-like. "More power than I ever dreamed of!" His shirt ripped down the middle and he jumped out of his seat when he reached ten feet tall and ripped the wires from his wrists which were already beginning to heal and he roared in triumph. The only thing that remained the same as the Leader was his enlarged cranium.

"Beautiful," Leader's voice was deeper than his previous as he looked over in Bruce's capsule. Bruce had returned to normal and was lying motionless in his chair, not a single muscle moving. "Thank you, doctor, for the power." Leader Hulk turned to Gargoyle over to the side and walked over the man now the size of an ant compared to him. Gargoyle refused to cower in fear and glared at Leader Hulk. The villainous hulk-like being leaned over to study Gargoyle and regard him with discontent. "Dead like the gargoyle you are, Yuri Topolov."

Next thing that happens, Leader Hulk smashes a fist through the wall closest to him just to demonstrate his power before he claws the rest of his way through. Nelson ran out from the room with Kate inside to see Leader Hulk jumping out the wall before sprinting towards another wall and jumping through to fall seven stories to the ground. He ran off into the city just to show off his power.

Downstairs, Blonsky, who carried the unconscious Ricky out through the secret passageway that Bruce and Kate entered through earlier, walked down the alley to come across the agent that Bruce was trailing earlier. "You got M99'd, didn't you?" he asks the sleeping agent like he was alive. He was about to throw Ricky into the nearest dumpster before the earth shakes underneath his feet for a brief second and he hears car alarms going off and sounds of heavy objects like cars crashing into one another. He puts the dog down and runs down the alleyway to see Leader Hulk swatting cars away as they drove down the street, picking up two and hitting them together like cymbals.

Blonsky was entranced by what he saw, unable to take his eyes off of the power that was being displayed in front of him. "Beautiful…"

Back in the room with the capsules, Gargoyle slowly bled out on the ground as he listened to the destruction echoing outside. Bruce still laid there in the chair, motionless for what seemed like forever. Gargoyle watched Bruce as his eyelids became too heavy to keep open but the sound of Bruce's slight coughing peeled his eyes open immediately. "Dr. Banner?"

Bruce lifted his head, eyes still closed, and ground his teeth down together. When he shot his eyes open, they were still green and his heavy breathing indicated that there was still anger present within him. Those green eyes were drawn over to Gargoyle as the little dwarf crawls to his knees and scoots over to the remote that Leader dropped. He pressed the green button and the restraints around Bruce's wrist released. Bruce jumped out of his seat as fast as a jaguar and lifted Gargoyle high above his head with only one head.

"What?" Gargoyle gasped at the strength that Bruce was displaying, "How is it that Hulk is still within you?"

"Gargoyle," a deep voice with anger said softly, "You thought that Hulk was just a force? He is an individual."

Gargoyle was not a dummy; he was able to put two and two together in a matter of seconds. "You let Hulk break out of you to give to Leader? Why?"

"I don't think Leader is going to like the _real_ Hulk when he meets him." Bruce slowly puts the dwarf back down on the ground before rushing out of the room. He punched the door off of its hinges. Ninety percent of Hulk left him and was transferred into Leader but ten percent of Hulk remained with him. Even with most of Hulk separated from him, he was still able to telepathy connect to Hulk even from a long-distance away.

_Bruce: Hulk, can you hear me?_

_Hulk: Hulk can hear me?_

_Bruce: It worked, thank you._

_Hulk: Bighead has a lot of junk in his brain._

_Bruce: Not surprised. I need you to bring the Leader back here so we can reverse the process and take him out._

_Hulk: Hulk is confused, why not just let Hulk hulk-out earlier and then take him down?_

_Bruce: The only way to throw Leader off our tails for good was to get him to not want the power anymore. Show him what it's like to have your power and then bring him back here._

_Hulk: Hulk will have fun with bighead._

_Bruce: I'm sure you will._

Bruce smashed his way through the door leading to the Gamma Knife room. Nelson was standing in front of him and he quickly grabbed the mercenary by the collars of his jacket and threw him across the room. He screamed as he collided with a glass cabinet of medicine on the other side of the room. He looked at the MRI device behind the glass and saw Kate's with her hands tied. "Kate," he almost gasped.

He moves in to help her but Nelson grabs Bruce from the side. Bruce grabs both of Nelson's hands and uses his super strength to swing him like a baton into the wall and left him tossing and turning on the ground in pain.

Bruce then tweaks with a few buttons at the controls to remove Kate from the MRI device. Once she is rolled out, he runs in to discover that she was restrained to a gurney and her mouth was still taped shut. He rips the tape off her mouth and her yelps in pain. "Why did you have to rip it off?" She notices that he's stripped down to a pair of purple shorts. "What happened to you? Did you hulk-out again and I miss it?"

"Not exactly," Bruce denies as he rips the restraints off of her wrists with his bare hands, shocking her. "Leader got what he wanted."

Kate was even more shocked as she rubbed her bruised wrists. She was about to say something else before she saw Nelson sneak up on Bruce with a fire extinguisher. "Look out!"

Nelson hammered the weapon on the back of Bruce's head but like a statue, he stayed standing. He did take out his anger on him by grabbing him by the throat and launching him through the glass EMC window and he crashes through it. He turns back to Kate to reassure her, "Thanks for the heads up."

"What do you mean Leader got what he wanted?" she demanded once more as her feet were freed.

Bruce then explained what happened in the other room with the capsules. "Nothing major, but we have to get ready for when Leader comes back." She questioned him. "I may be separated from the Hulk, but because the Hulk was born out of me, we share telepathy. He's going to give Leader a ride to his hell before driving him back to this hospital where we're going to reverse the process."

"Perhaps I could be of assistance."

Bruce and Kate turn to the voice coming from the shattered window. Gargoyle was there and he was holding a hand over his wounded stomach as he met with Bruce and Kate. "I can help you reverse the process, turn everything back to the way it was. When Leader made the machine, he made it so that it would self-destruct upon completion. I know the schematics and I am excellent with improvising on the spot." He leans against the wall and almost falls before Bruce catches him. Gargoyle looks up into Bruce's green eyes and smiles upon realizing that his theory was correct. "We're gonna get the rest of Hulk back into you."

"Why are you doing this, Gargoyle?" Bruce asked, "I thought we were enemies?"

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." He looks down at the blood on his hands. "For far too long, Leader has pushed me too far. This time, I get the last laugh."


	9. Magnesium

Gargoyle took Bruce and Kate outside where they ran into one of Leader's scientists. The scientist panicked upon the sight of Bruce and was about to back away before Gargoyle reassured him that Bruce was no longer a threat.

"How can you be sure?" the doctor asked unsurely.

"Because the Leader is the one who shot me and is out there and showing off his power." Gargoyle showed him his wounded stomach as a way to get the scientist to trust him. "We have to get the capsules back online, otherwise Leader will kill millions of innocent people and trust me, I did the calculations."

The scientist nods to Gargoyle before looking at Bruce and Kate, "What of them?"

Gargoyle looks at the two before turning back to the scientist, "Friends. They are no longer enemies, but our only friends."

"Okay," the scientist nodded before extending his hand out in a slightly apprehensive manner. "Dr. Banner, Ms. Waynesboro, I heard a lot about you two. I'm Dr. Miles Warren."

"Doctor," Bruce returned the gesture and shook his hand.

Gargoyle groans in pain and falls to his knees again. Miles quickly grabbed him and lead him inside the room with the capsules. The controls were set on fire and Bruce and Kate grabbed a fire extinguisher to douse the flames out.

Bruce ran up to Gargoyle as Miles set him down in the corner and used his lab coat as a way to soak up Gargoyle's blood. "Gargoyle, how do we repair the machine?"

"Leave that to me," he reassured before jolting in pain as the coat touched his wound, "Damn it, Leader!"

Miles looked over his shoulder at Bruce before saying, "I'll build the machine, all Gargoyle has to do is instructions."

"He's going to bleed out."

"I'll call my wife in and she'll help." He picks up a walkie-talkie from his hip and says into it, "Monica, I need your help in room 705. Gargoyle is bleeding badly and he requires your medical assistance." He hands the walkie-talkie to Gargoyle before instructing, "Keep pressure on your wound and give me instructions while Monica heals you up." A few moments later, Miles' wife came into the room and wasted no time in helping patch up Gargoyle. In a pained manner, Gargoyle gave instructions to Bruce, Kate, and Miles as they put the machines back together.

"I'll need a crowbar," Miles ordered as he bit down on two wires to keep his palms open when working with the control panel in the back of Bruce's capsule. Bruce grabs a crowbar from a red box that Monica had brought with her and he held out his hand for Miles to grab it until a painful sensation gnarled at him in the back of his skull. He turned his head to the right and listened carefully to the sounds of faint footsteps. His rage was boiling up and he made a fist with the crowbar in hand. He almost left a dent in the tool before he turned threw at the threat that stood at the door.

The crowbar struck the female Grady sister in the chest and she went flying back. The male Grady brother's eyes followed his sister as she flew across the room before turning back to shoot Bruce with his pistol. Bruce rushes the Grady brother and slapped the pistol out of his hand before grabbing him by his neck and slamming his head into the door jamb above him and knocked the brother out instantly. Bruce threw the body to the side before he looked forward to seeing two more mercenaries standing in front of him with assault rifles. "Wait," Bruce held up his hands in appeasement, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"You're deHulked," the mercenary on Bruce's left said. "You are no threat but Leader did give us instructions to eliminate everybody in Room 705 after he absorbs the Hulk's powers."

Bruce's eyebrows arched after hearing that statement. He recalls facing a villain with the ability to absorb the physical properties of anything object he touched. Let's just say he absorbed the wrong thing at the wrong time and it cost him his life. "Gargoyle is helping to fix the machine, two of your allies are in this room with me. Don't hurt any of them." His eyes glowed greener than before, a symbol that his rage was boiling hotter. "Don't make me angry, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Both of the mercenaries offed every single bullet in their assault rifles into Bruce. The bullets bounced off but he still stepped back from the impact. Bruce roared in anger before picking up a table behind him and throwing it at the two mercenaries. The table smashed through the wall the door was part of and it hit both mercenaries painfully and left a mess of debris behind.

"What the hell?!" Kate cursed as she held up the fire extinguisher as a weapon. "That was awesome, Bruce!"

Bruce smirked at her sentence and nodded, "Thank you." He looked back outside at the mess he created to see that the mercenary from his left was still conscious and slowly reaching for a gun. He said to Miles, Kate, Monica, and Gargoyle before walking out of the room, "I'll buy you time, just get the siphons back online."

Bruce angrily walked over to the still conscious mercenary and with a flick of his wrist, smacked him across the room and sent him flying into the wall. Down the hall, from the elevator, he took with Kate, came more mercenaries, a lot more and each one had was loaded with a light machine gun. There were at least fifteen of them. The eight in front crouched down to fire at Bruce while the other seven waited for their turns behind them with their guns drawn. Bruce shrugged off the bullets before turning to two soda machines. He grabbed the first one and threw it with one hand at the large group of people and knocked them over like bowling pins. He took the other soda machine and planted it in front of the room with the capsules as a way to ensure that no mercenaries would be getting inside without a fight.

Bruce quickly picked up the crowbar he threw and tossed it to Kate. "Stay down while I take care of these guys." He moves over to the downed mercenaries. There were fifteen of them and all of them were injured badly but only four were put out of commission. One of the mercenaries got up and aimed his LMG at Bruce but didn't get the chance to fire. Bruce grabbed him by the shoulders and jumped into the air, taking the merc with him. He slams the merc into the ceiling above him and put him out of commission when he returned to the ground.

Ten left.

Bruce grabbed two more mercenaries that slowly crawled to their feet and he threw them over his head without even looking and took them both out of the game.

Eight left.

One of the mercenaries jumped onto Bruce's back while another one stepped in front of him and punched Bruce. It felt like his knuckles connected to a brick wall and he yelled in pain. Bruce grabbed the merc on top of him by the foot and swung him like a baseball bat at the merc that injured his fist and disabled both of them.

Six left.

Bruce looked at his feet and saw a mercenary crawling away but he picks him up and tosses him over a counter. He jumps over the counter after the mercenary and finishes him off by grabbing him by the throat and throwing him into the ceiling above him.

Five left.

One of the five remaining mercenaries attempted to make a run for the door but Bruce caught up to him and picked him up above his head. He turned to the hallway and threw him down the long and continuous hallway and the mercenary slid across the floor before he lightly hits the wall at the very end in a soft manner but he decided to stay down.

Four left.

One mercenary throws a punch aiming for Bruce's face. Bruce catches the fist with his super reflexes and slowly crushes the bones in his knuckles. The merc winces in agony and contort. Bruce swatted him away and sent him flying into the air before he fell onto the couch in the waiting room. He attempted to squirm away but Bruce grabbed one of the couch's end and threw it through a wall with the mercenary still on it.

Three left.

One of the mercenaries picked up a vase and shattered it over Bruce's head. Bruce slowly turned around and saw the fear arise in the merc's eyes and tried to run away but Bruce kicked him in the back of his spine as he tried to get away and sent the mercenary falling forward and landing hard on his front.

The two mercenaries were smart enough to pick up their guns and fire at Bruce. The bullets just bounced off of Bruce and he growled and snarled at them in anger.

The two mercenaries' facial expressions froze in terror like a mask as Bruce clenched his fists tightly and made one big step towards them. They both cowered back in fear and Bruce knew at the drop of a hat that if he took another step, then they would be running. For Bruce, he would've let them getaway. But since he had Hulk controlling him (partially), he refused to let them get away without some kind of repercussions.

The mercenary he kicked, Bruce picked him up by the belt and threw him to the mercenary on his left. They both went flying back and hit the wall behind them and both put out of commission. The still standing mercenary quickly surrendered with pleas of mercy and dropped down to his knees.

"Please," he begged, "Show some mercy." He threw the gun away and raised his hands to show that he was for real. Bruce still walked up to him and he cringed in fear. Bruce contemplated just whacking him and leaving but that would've been too cruel even for him and he decided to let him go until he heard the elevator door beside him to his left open and four more mercenaries revealed themselves with heavy machine guns. Before they could draw their weapons, Bruce grabbed the merc by his jacket and threw him into the elevator and knocked the four down like dominos that he did to the larger group. He then kicked the elevator button and the door closed on them, trapping the poor mercenaries inside. He turned around to make sure that all of the mercenaries were taken care of.

Bruce was about to return to Kate and the others before he felt the presence of another mercenary in the room with him. He looked over his shoulder and among the unconscious bodies, stood Emil Blonsky, staring intently at Bruce, showing no fear in his eyes. Bruce glared at him in the eyes before walking up to him and stood face-to-face with Blonsky.

Both beings observed each other but neither one making a single move.

Blonsky was studying Bruce because he was envious of his powers.

Bruce was studying Blonsky because he saw something within Blonsky. He didn't see a man.

He saw an abomination.

For the longest time in the staring contest, not a single person batted an eye. In the, he decided that Blonsky wasn't worth it and walked away to help out the others. Blonsky was almost offended but he quickly took his opportunity to turn and deserted the hospital.

Bruce pushed the soda machine out of the way and headed back into the room. Both capsules were being worked on with Miles on one and Kate on the other Monica had successfully patched up Gargoyle's wound.

"Dr. Banner," Miles called out, "The machines are almost back online. But I can only get them working for a limited time."

"No need to worry," Kate told Miles, "Bruce can summon the Hulk back here, right?" Bruce nods. "How much time do we even need, doctor?"

"Ten minutes," the nervous doctor answered. "You think we can get Leader back in this capsule and siphon the energy back into you?"

"We won't have to make Leader sit in the chair," Bruce said, confident about his answer, "He'll come to us and beg for the process to be reversed."

* * *

"The power," Leader Hulk cheered to himself as he swatted a car away with one hand and sent it flying into a building. "I've never felt such power before." He steps onto the hood of a car and caused to fly up and he catches it over his head. "I'm a GOD!" He slams the car into the ground like one would do a body slam to a person. Police arrived at the scene and started shooting at Leader Hulk. Unlike the OG Hulk, Leader Hulk was not annoyed by the shower of bullets bouncing off his green skin. He moved over to the little police officers and kicked them away. He grabbed one of the police cars and ripped it in two with both hands. He uses both hands like boxing gloves on the incoming police cruisers and totaled the vehicles. "Thank you, Dr. Banner!"

Then he felt something hit the back of his head and he went falling forward on his front. He jumped to his feet and turns around, expecting to see someone with a rocket launcher but he never expected to see...the Incredible Hulk standing in front of him. He does not hide the shocked expression that crosses his face. "What, that's not possible!"

The Incredible Hulk said nothing but tilted his head upon studying Leader Hulk.

"Who are you?!" Leader Hulk demanded, raising his hands and spreading his feet shoulder length in a fighting position. "I demand you tell me who you are or so help-"

Leader Hulk runs up to Hulk and throws a punch towards his face. Hulk seemingly vanished into thin air as Leader Hulk's fist collided with a building wall. He should've punched a hole in the wall but the outcome of the result was nothing but a pair of knuckles with an agonizing sensation that caused Leader Hulk to scream.

"What the hell is going on?" He looked down at his wrists to notice blood on them. He spotted the wound in his knuckles and expected them to heal but they didn't. "What's happening to me, who are you?"

_Leader…_

"Who said that?"

_Hulk did._

"You're not hulk," Leader Hulk shouted at the voice and struck the air blindly. "I'm the Hulk, you're nothing but a speck of imagination."

_If Hulk was your imagination, could he do this?_

A green fist appearing out of nowhere connected to Leader Hulk's jaw and sent him flying back hundred of yards, rolling down the street like a ball down a hill. Leader Hulk was stopped only when he went rolling down an empty canal and far away from the city limits. "What the hell was that?" Leader Hulk groaned in pain as he slowly sat up but as he sat up he searched around him for the Hulk. When he got to his feet, he did another thorough sweep around him and still found no signs of Hulk. "This isn't real, none of this is real."

_Do you believe that, Sterns?_

Leader Hulk's eyes widened as he recognized the sound of that voice speaking in his head. "Banner?!" He shook his head in disbelief, confused as to how the lifeless husk was still alive. "You're dead, you should've died when all that gamma was sucked from your body."

_You thought that I would give you this power because I'm sick and tired of you? That is partially true, but I have a bigger reason for it._

"You're just a hallucination," Leader Hulk laughed, "Nothing but a figment of my imagination."

_If I was a figment of your imagination, then could I instruct you to punch yourself in the face?_

"I'd like to see you try," he mocked before a fist plowed him in the face and he fell on his back. Leader Hulk yelled in pain as he clutched his jaw and spat out several teeth. His eyes widened in horror as he got back to his feet and looked around for Banner. "What the hell is going on? What the hell is happening to me?!"

_Sterns, you may be the smartest person on this planet, but there is one detail you overlooked: Hulk is not a force of nature, he is a person._

Leader Hulk, being the brains he was, deduced what Banner meant and his eyes widened in terror. "Oh no…"

_And since he has likes and dislikes, he doesn't like you and is going to make your life a living hell. Since Hulk has both hands on the wheel, have fun being locked in the trunk._

The sky above Leader Hulk darkened as he looked up. The ground around him was set on fire and there was fog that entrapped him from all directions. In both directions of the empty canal, there were red lights that lit up the entire area. Leader Hulk's forehead began sweating and he wiped away the sweat but more and more sweat came raining down.

Hulk was creating a personal hell for Leader Hulk and it was working perfectly. He materialized himself in front of Leader Hulk and walked forward. "Sterns," Hulk said in Banner's voice. "Welcome to your hell."

Leader Hulk cowered in fear and acting off of instinct, rushed at Hulk to throw a punch but he vanished into midair and he ended up punching the air.

"I think you're going to like it here."

Leader Hulk turned around and punched the source of the voice behind him but his fist collided with a solid object and he winced in agony. Now both pairs of knuckles on both hands were bleeding and not healing. Before he could even move a muscle, he suddenly went flying into the air, thousands of feet above the ground, before he went falling. He fell through flames that burned his back (or so he thought) and when he hit rock bottom, the ground rumbled like an earthquake and the spine in his back snapped in two. Leader Hulk winces in agony for the longest time before he rolls over on his side.

He felt his spine heal back into place but he was still hurt enough to stay still and continued to groan in pain. "None…" he slowly wheezed as if he had a collapsed lung (and probably did), "of this...is real…"

"Really," Bruce's voice expressed doubt, "Is that what you believe?"

Leader Hulk was still laying on the ground when the OG Hulk's feet materialized in front of him and his heels connected to Leader Hulk's nose. The villain clutches his nose and watches blood drip down in his hands. "All of this is psychosomatic," he retorted to the Hulk. "What you need to learn, Hulk is that _I'm_ the leader."

Suddenly, without warning, another version of Leader Hulk appeared in front of him. He was shaken and he jumped to his feet only for his counterpart to grab him and start hammering his face into the concrete. Leader Hulk tried fighting back but he disappeared before he could get a chance at relation.

Then, all of Leader Hulk's worst nightmares came rolling at him like a bullet train. He experienced the most horrifying, most hellish experience of his life. He was tortured physically and psychologically form within from weird hallucinations ranging from beating beat up by Hulk, to even being burned by glowing green fires. He experienced all of Bruce's horrid memories of Hulk only the physical pain was much greater, three times more painful. He started running for his life but Hulk would always catch up to him and the endless cycle of torture would continue. Pretty soon, all of his strength had vanished from his body and his skin had been removed of its green color. Now, he was just Samuel Sterns, without the enlarged cranium. That still did not stop the torture. He just saw visions of what Hulk was seeing when he fought all of his mercenaries and he experienced all of their pains only double. When Igor stepped on the landmine and blew up, Sterns' body was torn in half only to be repaired instantly. The painful attacks from the Hulk robots were passed onto him and he saw blood pour out from his chest.

Then he experienced the most hellish experience of it all. His body was swelling up with gamma radiation like a balloon and he screamed in agony. As he swelled up, faces inside the swelling were shown and they were faces from Burce and Hulk's past and they were all his enemies. As the swelling grew larger and larger, the pain became more and more painful to the point that he felt like he was going to explode with gamma radiation. The pain was too much for him to bear and the worst of all was while he was swelling up, he saw visions of Intelligencia laughing at Sterns' expense and people started forgetting about Leader completely. Even his men and Gargoyle ended up spitting on his grave. That was the last thing he felt before he blew up like an atomic bomb.

Sterns screams in physical and emotional agony, unable to take more of this torture. "Take it back!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, "TAKE IT BACK!"

"If you can't stand the heat, Sterns, then get out of the kitchen."

"I can't stand the heat," Sterns cried, "I'm getting out of the kitchen! Just take it all back!"

_You know what, Sterns, no. You're going to live with this for the rest of your life._

"NO!" he panicked, "Please take it back! I swear on my life that I will leave you and Hulk alone. I'll do anything for this pain to end, please!"

_Hulk: Hulk likes torturing you though._

"I can't take anymore, I'm going to go insane. Please, just take it back!"

_Bruce: You promise that you end this chase with me and Hulk?_

"I swear!"

_Bruce: And you'll use your intelligence for good and never hurt another living soul as long as you live?_

"Yes, I promise."

_Bruce: That was half-hearted at best, give me your sincere word._

"I promise!" Sterns cried. "I swear on my grave!"

_Bruce: That's what I wanted to hear because we're just starting up the machine._

The Leader opened his closed eyes and looked in front of him to see that he was back in the hospital and his hands were being held down by the restraints he designed to keep Hulk at bay. He was in the capsule that he put Bruce in and Bruce was in the capsule that he was in. He tried freeing his hands but his strength was zapped from his wrists and then he noticed that his knuckles had healed. Actually, there was never any blood on his knuckles and he was still in his green body and his cranium was still enlarged. Leader looked up at Bruce and glared at him. He quickly deduced what had happened and he growled in anger, "You son of a bitch, you tricked me."

Bruce put the orange wires in his mouth before pulling them out to answer, "Did you enjoy your hellish experience?"

Leader tried breaking free and struggled in his seat but he couldn't move. "You cheating son of a bitch, I'm going to murder you."

"You gave him your word," Kate sings mockingly to Leader as she walks into view, holding the crowbar in her hand. "Are you welching on your deal?"

"Don't blame him," Gargoyle told as he walked up to Kate's side. "He's a sore loser because he doesn't like being outsmarted." Even though he was bound by restraints, Leader still tried to attack Gargoyle. "Who's so small now?"

"Gargoyle, you said you would help me defeat Banner!"

"I lied," Gargoyle smirked, remembering that Leader said the same thing when he promised Bruce alive long enough to cure him. He looks over at the Warrens and nods to them, "Turn on the machine."

Bruce bit down on the wires as he heard the humming of the machine and felt a vibration surge through his mouth. His eyes were still green but he closed them as he felt the energy surge throughout his entire body. He could hear Leader yelling in defeat as he felt his body expand and grow. He kept his anger in check and made a fist with both hands. He growled and the wires fell from his mouth. By the time he opened his eyes, he was one hundred percent Hulk once again.


	10. Sodium

The overloaded system caused the wires to both capsules to catch fire along with the equipment in the room. Hulk burst out of his restraints and roared in anger and triumph as he smashed the glass to pieces in his capsule. He lunges for the equipment and starts destroying more of it.

"Now would be a good time to get out of here," Kate suggested as she stood near the door to the other. "Any objections? No, good." She sprints out of the room with Gargoyle and the Warrens following. Leader was still trapped in his seat and cried out for Gargoyle.

"Gargoyle, you miserable troll," his screamed echoed briefly, "Get back here and help me!" When Gargoyle pretended he didn't hear him, that's when he realized that Gargoyle was no longer his ally but his full-time enemy. He yelled at the thought of being left behind and it terrified him. He looked through the door and saw Nelson standing there with another mercenary and they were both helping the Gradys get to their feet. "Nelson!" he called out to his loyal lieutenant. Leader says as Nelson turns, "Help me!"

Nelson grunts like a toddler and ran, taking the mercenaries with him. When not a single mercenary went to help him, that's when the horrifying truth began to sink in: Nobody was going to help him out. He had treated his employees with disdain and it finally came back to bite him in the ass. The horrifying truth sunk in like a blade between the rib cages and he sat back in his seat as Hulk, accepting his fate with dignity as Hulk continued to destroy the lab.

The green monster broke his way through the wall and smashed the waiting room apart. He picked up the soda machine from earlier and threw it out of the nearest wall and it went flying out of sight. He smashes a door with his bare hands before sprinting and breaking the wall apart with his shoulders. He hammers his fist into the MRI device that Kate was strapped through earlier before using both hands to pick up the device and yanked it from the ground. He holds it above his head and roars, light getting in his face. He throws it through the wall and sets off a big explosion that set all the walls around him on fire.

The heat caused the overhead sprinklers to go off and a highly pressurized oxygen tank that was sitting in a wheelchair went rolling across the ground and hit the side of Hulk's right foot. The Hulk looked at the tank and smashed it with the sole of his foot, sending a powerful wave of pressurized air caused by the impact to make a small explosion of air and disable the sprinklers.

The mercenaries that Bruce knocked out earlier had regained consciousness and were running for their lives upon feeling the burning sensation of the wires melting away the walls. Kate, Gargoyle, and the Warrens who already made it outside were yelling for the other mercenaries to get out of there. There were injured mercenaries who were saved by their comrades out of there and some even went back inside to save the ones still trapped inside.

"Come on," Kate shouted at the crowd of mercenaries, "Get out of there! Get out!" The female Grady bumped into Kate's shoulder but neither one cared and just ran off and out of sight with her brother. "The building just might be unstable, so get out of there!" A large crowd of police cruisers pulled up to the scene of the disturbance and set up a perimeter.

"Gentlemen," Gargoyle barely croaked out while holding his stitched stomach in pain. The seven men that did hear him looked at him inquisitively. "Help the police set up a perimeter; all evidence of our involvement burns in there along with Leader."

The Warrens were checking on the wounded and made sure no bones were broken on this one merc on the ground. As Miles assessed the damage done to this mercenary's (broken) arm, he couldn't help but think of what he just witnessed happen in the hospital. He saw Bruce Banner transforms into the Hulk for the first time. That even really got him thinking, most of what will become of humans after they've reached their end. "I wish I could help," he said to himself.

**(AN: To all those who read **_**Homecoming,**_** this event is what set off his experimenting for amplified humans)**

Back upstairs, the fire was spreading and because the sprinklers were disabled, they continued to spread and the upper half of the building was already in flames and working its way down. Hulk was still taking out his rage and victory out in the hospital. He smashes his way down to the sixth by stomping through before stopping when he's on the fifth floor. Hulk was about to stomp through the ground again but he stopped when he saw a device in the middle of the room that he was standing in.

He calmed down so he could see what device it was and he moved forward and tilted his head to the side. Hulk was having vivid memories of when he was first born, May 1, 2012, five years ago. When he inspected the device closer, he realizes that this machine was the same machine that doused Bruce Banner with all that gamma radiation that turned him into the Hulk. When he realized that, the rage was slowly building up in both Hulk and Bruce, about to go off like a ticking time bomb. The green creature growls softly in anger before it turns into a yell and he roars as loud as he could as the ticking time bomb goes off. He wraps his hands around the device and rips it from the ceiling. He holds it above his head before dropping it down to the ground. He wasn't done and he finished off the radiation device by ramming it through the wall behind him and it goes flying falls five stories out.

The police cruiser in front of Kate was flattened but there was luckily nobody inside. Kate jumped back in surprise at the device that fell spontaneously in front of her and looks up to see the hole in the wall. "Hulk," she whispered, "What are you doing?"

Hulk inhaled and exhaled deeply as a way to burn off the adrenaline. He walks up to the hole in the wall that he just created, prepares to jump out until he is pulled back in. He falls to the floor before jumping back up to see one of the last two robots blocking his path. He reels his fist in to punch the robot before the second one appears out of nowhere and tackles him to the side. They crash through the wall with the robot landing on top of Hulk. He raises his buzzsaw arm and slashes Hulk's throat with it. Hulk grunts in pain but the wound heals like a lizard's amputated hand. Hulk punches the second robot in the face and throws it off before he gets back to his feet just in time before the first robot wraps his arms around Hulk's chest and lifts him above the floor. While the Hulk was briefly airborne, he quickly kicks the second robot that was approaching Hulk from behind and sent the robot back. He breaks free of his current captor's hands and punches the head off of the robot.

The second robot hits the back of Hulk's head with his hammer hand. Hulk grunts in pain before elbowing the second robot in the chest without turning his head and leaves a huge dent right in its heart area.

"You robots suck," Hulk says in regards to the two robots.

They were installed with some kind of emotional intelligence because as soon as these words left Hulk's mouth, they snapped towards Hulk and froze like a statue made of ice. After reconnecting his head, the first robot lunges for Hulk's front while the second one for his back.

With his quick reflexes, Hulk leaps and the two robots collide with each other and break apart. The robot's body parts smashed to pieces from head to toe and green liquid, Promethium, pooled around them. The first robot hand its left hand detached from its body and it was using its thrusters to reconnect with its shoulder blade. Hulk stomped on the hand and crushed it to dust. He then picks up the chest of the first robot and punches a hole through the heart area and rips out the main wires, disabling that robot.

He then turns to the second robot and picks it up with his left hand by the chest area as well. He reels his fist back and before he could throw a punch, the hand detached from the robot's body activated its thrusters and sent the buzzsaw flying right into Hulk's back. The green creature yelled in pain like an animal before he smashes his back into the wall and caused the buzzsaw to fall. He punches the second robot with all his might in the head, neck, and chest area. He rips out the wires and watched the last robot twitch. He throws the robot to the side like a rag doll and hits himself in the chest like a gorilla to further express his victory.

Hulk has decided that he has finally had enough. With all his might, he leaps up towards the ceiling and bursts his way upstairs and lands on the roof with a huge crash and a massive hole the size of a shipping container in the center. Hulk gives out one more roar that echoed seemingly all across the city and for miles to come. He waits a moment before he jumps over to the edge before using all of his strength to make one massive leap across the city, leaving the burning hospital three to four miles behind.

Down below, Gargoyle and his mercenaries ran away while they still could yet Kate stayed behind and watched Hulk soar off into the distance. Firefighters and more police cruisers had arrived at the scene but she paid no attention to them. She watched like a starstruck fan meeting their idol as Hulk leaped out of sight and into the clouds, her mouth slightly hanging open. She was at a loss of words, not because she was shocked that Hulk was leaving her behind, but that she was satisfied with helping Bruce with his mission and her seeing him soar off into the sky was a kind of physical victory for her.

"See you later, Bruce."

* * *

Days Without Incident: 7

A week had passed since the hospital burned down to the ground. The firefighters went inside to find people trapped inside but Gargoyle, the Warrens, and every single mercenary made it out alive, so there was only one person left inside: And he burned to death.

Ricky, who found his way back to Kate after escaping a dumpster that he was thrown in, sat down on a bench next to Kate and Bruce. The two were having some burgers, fries, and drinks from a fast food restaurant and Bruce was taking slow bites as to savor every sweet bite of his burger. To him, this half-eaten juicy tasted like heaven.

"So," Kate started before pausing to take a sip from her drink, "I know I already asked this once or twice, but how does it feel to finally be free?"

Bruce paused from eating, a fry only halfway to his mouth before he turned to her and answered, "The answer is always the same: Blissful." He ate the fry. "I always knew that Burger King made the best cheeseburgers, but I never realized that Turkey made the best Burger King cheeseburgers."

"See, there are benefits to be chased down: You get to travel, and you discover new things like Turkey has the best cheeseburgers from Burger King."

He agreed with her on that one and nodded. "True." He sips his drink.

"Quick question. Bruce: What happened to Gargoyle and his mercenaries?"

"Last I heard, Gargoyle wasted no time in getting back to Russia, the mercenaries went back to their jobs as hired guns, and the Warrens relocated to New York, saying that they started up a career at Empire State University as biochemists."

"Well, good for them."

Then neither one talked for a while so there was a kind of awkward silence that transpired between them and they did their best to block it out and just finish their food. When Bruce finished his food, he threw it like a basketball into the trashcan only a few meters away for him and muttered, "Yes" when he made it. Kate, on the other hand, failed and had to pick up her trash and throw it away manually, but she refused to give Bruce the satisfaction of her humiliation.

"So, any plans after today?" Kate asked as she sunk back into her seat. "It feels so good being free again, right?"

Bruce nodded. "I don't have any plans after this, just walk in a public place and enjoy because I don't have to fear getting caught in crowded places."

"I would do the same thing," she agreed. "When freedom is taken away from people, that's when they realize how much they took their freedom for granted. I have not been home in over three weeks and I am missing it. I miss the feeling of walking through the front door, going to the fridge, pull out bread, ham, and cheese, and making a diagonally cut ham and cheese sandwich."

"I can't eat ham with cheese unless the cheese is melted," Bruce said offhandedly and Kate laughed at him. "But I do miss home. I miss just falling into the bed, and then getting out just to go to work."

"I thought Bruce Banner didn't have a job."

"Well, Bruce Bannister had jobs instead of Bruce Banner because Bruce Banner was too busy being chased by green beings with giant heads. But, now that the threat is over, I can go back to my job as a nuclear physicist."

Kate narrowed her eyes at him to make sure she heard correctly. "You're a nuclear physicist?"

"Yeah, that's how I became Hulk in the first place."

"So…" Kate droned for a while before thinking of something to say. "You want to visit sightseeing places? I mean, you and I are free in Turkey and the police forgive us for burning down a hospital that was already evacuated of civilians."

"I'll just sit down and relax for now then we can start moving." He leans forward and his head goes limp after cupping his hands together and resting both elbows on both knees. "You know, the stress of my life on the run has hurt my back and now that we're both free, my back has never felt so good before."

"Hey, old man, I'm still young. I'm thirty-seven."

"I'm not old," Bruce almost spoke in an offended voice but he still managed to add humor behind it and made her laugh. "I'm forty-four, not even middle-aged."

"But I can see gray hairs growing right here," she touched his sideburns and he playfully pushed her hands away. "Don't worry, I'm sure with Hulk, he can de-age you."

"That's comforting and reassuring," he laughed.

Their peals of laughter quickly died down as they became serious. Now it was back to awkward silence for about a minute and a half. Bruce put an abrupt end to this cycle of silence by speaking. "You know," he hesitated slightly, "I never did thank you for all the help."

"What?" Kate shook her head, "I barely helped. You did all the work, if anything, I was the useless character in this story."

"No you weren't, you helped out plenty."

"What did I do, you deserve all the credit."

"Nah, you help me so you deserve the credit?"

"How?"

"Well, for the longest time, a year, it was just me and Hulk on the run from Leader. I figured the best way to survive was to live under a false identity and stay away from large groups of people. Then you came barreling into my life and now all of a sudden, I got somebody _to_ live for. You were lying in a ditch and I couldn't let you die so I Hulked-out for you. Then, you refused to leave me for safety so you stayed to help me. You helped build that false gas station which leads Leader to find us in Egypt but he sends his goons to attack you and you're drugged once more. Because of my concern for your safety, it inspired me to take down Leader once and for all so you wouldn't get hurt. If anything, you're an important character in this plot."

Kate's eyes widened in shock, each word from his paragraph of sentences seeping in like splatters of blood on a white t-shirt. Did he just say that he did all of this just for her? Sure, she was useless as she was hunted down by mercenaries back in Egypt, put up a fight at least, and when they were in the hospital, she was knocked out (again for the umpteenth time) and placed in a device fitted to turn her brain into a snack. And here Bruce was, telling her that because of his care for her, he wanted to defeat Leader once and for all and save not himself, but her as well. If she didn't have a crush on Bruce before, it just went up eighty percent and she didn't both to hide the smile that expanded across her face. It wasn't a sly or mischevious smile, but one of those smiles that people give when they are evoked happiness. Without even wasting another second, she scoots closer to Bruce and wraps her hands around him in a loving and affectionate hug, putting her head to his chest and listening to the soft sounds of his heartbeat. "You did all of this for me?"

"Of course." Bruce put a hand around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head, his lips pressing against her wavy blonde hair. He rubs her hair and Ricky gets jealous. "Hulk and I always put our friends' safety before my own."

"But then again, how many friends do you have?"

It didn't take long for Bruce to count because he didn't need to count. He raised one finger and said, "One: You."

"Aww," she awed, "Am I Bruce _and _the Hulk's only friend? That must mean I'm your best friend, right?"

_Kate is Bruce and Hulk's best friend._

Bruce nodded to his friend in his head before answering, "Our only best friend."

"Does that mean, we're going to make BFF bracelets? You can wear the green one and I can wear the purple one."

_What's a BFF bracelet?_

"It's something friends wear," Bruce explained to Hulk before realizing that he spoke aloud to Kate and tried to clear the air. "The Big Guy was talking and I decided to make things clear with him."

"I was about to say…you still want BFF bracelets? I'll even make you the stretchy ones so the next time you Hulk-out-"

"That's cute," he chuckled but she was offended.

"I'm cute, I'm not trying to be cute. I never aim for cuteness."

"But you are cute."

Her feelings of offense turned back into feelings of amusement.

Then they sunk right back into silence, but it wasn't awkward this time. It was kinda peaceful. The fact that they were just sitting there, talking about friendship bracelets like a couple of teenagers in love- wait, in love? Was this love? They've only known each other for several weeks but it felt like three lifetimes to them. He risked his life to save her and she did the same to him by staying. She fought like hell to reunite with Bruce and he fought like hell (as Hulk) to carry her off to safety (twice). But it was too fast for love and Bruce still didn't feel like he was ready to love again. It's been three years since Betty died, but this was moving too quickly for him. Maybe if he had a chance to meet Kate during the 'normal' phase of his life, then maybe something could've worked out. But as he sat there on that bench, he was thinking how during the ship ride to Egypt, he said something that made Kate cry and he could've sworn that he saw a heartbroken look in her eyes. If Kate had feelings for him (which he doubted because it was too early and they still needed time to get to know each other), then what was he supposed to feel for her?

Then again, she was the one who suggested BFF bracelets. He liked the relationship he currently had between them - best friends (he doesn't know about forever) - but then again, he was born in 1973 and the term BFF wasn't put in the dictionary until 1996, so he was way too old be saying 'Best Friends Forever'.

He figured, at this point, the best kind of date that he could offer was a date to the movies to see a Syfy (yes, Bruce loved Syfy movies) or a date for some coffee.

"So," Bruce didn't know what to say again after the silence that began to drill into his head kicked up to the annoyance level. "I don't have any more material, I'm drained out."

Kate nodded, understanding that feeling. "Yeah, me too. Not much to talk about when you're free and just sitting down on a bench."

"Tell me about it." Ricky suddenly leaped down from the bench and moved over to Bruce's side. Bruce petted the dog on the head, baby talking to it and kissed it on the head. "Who's a good boy?" Ricky licked Bruce's cheek back.

"Ricky loves you."

"He does." Then Ricky leaves Bruce's side to move over to Kate's. "But he likes you more." He decides to speak now or forever hold his peace. "There is one thing I want to ask though: You want to go see a movie sometime or go out for some coffee?" He said it so fast he had to repeat it just to make sure that he heard himself say it correctly.

"Like-like a date?" Kate's heart race over the anticipation that Bruce was asking her on a date. _Her_ on a date. After all of the insane shit they had been through, he was asking her on a date. She slowed her roll and calmly asked after inhaling, "Just as friends."

"JUST as friends."

She exhales in relief, realizing, after all, they've been through, they do need to slow things down. Just friends.

Meet Robert Bruce Banner, born May 10, 1973, to Brian and Rebecca Banner in Dayton, Ohio. he grew up as a lonely but intelligent loser. May 1, 2012, he becomes the subject of an experiment that goes out the window and douses him with more than enough energy to transform himself into a green creature of unmatched strength whenever he loses his temper. But five years of training, he was able to control the Hulk and they work together to fight enemies of super strength and superintelligence. He has isolated himself and went on the run from the military for two years but he leaves the life behind and almost settled down with the love of his life, Betty Ross, until a missile comes falling from the sky and kills Betty and her father but leaves Bruce in a fitting rage that causes him to transform. He spent years trying to cure himself after, going after cellular biologists but only ended up creating a villain. He saves the passengers from a plane crash, goes on the run for a year before he finally defeats his nemesis and becomes whole once more. Now here he was, sitting down with his new and only best friend, discussing plans for Syfy movies and coffee places. The world treated him unfairly recently, but ever since Kate came into his life and he has gotten the Hulk under control, life felt pretty damn good.

Enough of that monologue.

* * *

**And that is it for **_**The Incredible Hulk: Brains.**_** Probably wasn't my best work but I did my best. It was a fun ride and I enjoyed Professor Hulk's portrayal in **_**Endgame**_** but I decided that Bruce and Hulk's relationship should be like it was in **_**Age of Ultron**_**: They both have a hand on the wheel. Yes, Leader is confirmed dead and Gargoyle is confirmed alive and currently working on a cure. Thank you all for taking the time to read this story and as always, if you liked it, leave a review or even favorite it. As always, constructive criticism is accepted. Until next time, where one more story will be written set in the same universe. This story takes place one year before **_**Homecoming**_** and two years before **_**Lethal**__**Protector**_**. The next prequel will take place one year before this one and will star ****TWO**** characters and deal with a more global threat. Until I post it, no details revealed. Bye.**


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